How Does Loading Time Affect Your Online Store?
- 12-16-2011
- Categorized in: Shopping Cart
Loading time is an important part of any website’s user experience, but it is vital in eCommerce. Sometimes we can get caught in the aesthetics of a site and end up sacrificing speed. Unfortunately slow loading time, not bad design, is a leading cause of site abandonment. Check out KissMetric’s infographic below to learn more about the affects of a slow site. Then use our 3 tips to help better your load time and your conversion!
Check your Speed: The first thing you want to do is check your current speed. Luckily there are some great free tools that let you do this:
Rearrange your HTML Document: It’s important to place the Stylesheet References at the top of your HTML document and the script references at the Bottom.
Only two components per hostname are downloaded by browsers at a time. By placing the <head> of your HTML document at the top of your page, your site will load faster because it allows your pages to render the styles progressively. Thus by choosing to place the script references at the top, you block other mor essential elements from loading of the page.To quicken your load time, place script references before the closing <body>.
Optimize Your Images
File format can greatly affect your page load so it’s important to know when to use each file format:
- PNG: Use for high quality transparent image.
- GIF: Use for images with few colors like logos
- JPEG: Use for images with lots of color and detail like photos.
Use free services to help you optimize and shrink your images:
Tip: Avoid changing an images size using the width and height attributes of <img> elements in HTML. Use an image editor like PickNic to decrease load time.
