There is one important thing about websites that could be said to be more important than the graphics, the user interface, the programming language or the usability and that thing… is speed!
A need, for website speed
We are forever getting busier and busier in life, constantly bombarding our minds with more and more information and we don’t want to wait around for it! We want it fast!! If anything takes longer than 3 to 5 seconds to come through we get bored! Fast! Not only do we get bored it also makes the site seem unreliable, amateur and sometimes even untrustworthy! This would be a disaster specially if you are a start up company with no reputation to speak of.
Different locations, different speeds
Not all places in the world have fast internet connection and your website may be stored somewhere far away from where the computer is trying to access the information from thus every user will get a different experience of your site. There is a website that you can type in your url of your website and discover how long it takes for your site to load.
http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/
It will do tests in 3 locations. Texas, New York & Amsterdam.
Speed up your website
It gives you an indication of the speed in each location and is quite interesting to see the differences. You will notice tabs appear similar to that below in the screenshot giving you a breakdown on what is working well and what isn’t to help you change what needs changing, enhance your sites ability to render quickly for your users.
If you click the drop down it will give you more information about what it is and what it is you can do about it.
So why not test your website toda, speed up your website and improve the user experiencey and then start your site fast as the speed of light! Best of luck!
In my next blog post I will give you some useful tips on some easy steps to improve your website speeds.
