Why is it very important to have all the URLs of our online store optimized? What are load speed tests for in an eCommerce?
We must bear in mind that the loading speed is a relevant factor in eCommerce. Why? You will ask yourself. Well, basically because the speed of your website will depend on whether a customer stays or goes to the competition, neither more nor less. Today, if your website does not load in less than 2-3 seconds, it is doomed to be out of position in search engines and in the heart of the customer.
That is why we ask you, have you ever analyzed the loading speed of your online store? If you have never done it, don’t worry because in this article we will tell you how to do it, and if you have done it, you will have seen how you have been shown data that is related to cart abandonment, and high bounce rate, and other things. class of consequences of your customers not completing the purchase process because they have not even browsed your website as it is too slow.
Why should I optimize the loading speed of my eCommerce?
The client does not have patience, it is the here and now, so it is important, as we said, that you have your website optimized, especially on those “critical” pages such as the checkout, for example. If your online business is based on the sale of products or services like any other online store, you should not neglect this important task. Not only should you optimize your “home”, that is, the main page, but each of the URLs of your store must be optimized.
In order not to lose sales or traffic to the web, optimize the product pages, the blog, and even the purchase conditions page. The customer visits a website and investigates it before making the purchase, comparing products, prices, features, etc. If your page is not fast, forget about filling the cart. Needless to say, it cannot fail at the moment you enter the bank details, so, after telling you how important it is to measure the speed of your website, we are going to see what factors influence the speed of your website.
Factors that influence page speed
The fact of using free web platforms means that it can negatively influence the speed of your website. What you should do is use an eCommerce platform where you can create and manage your online store professionally, such as Prestashop, example, which is also hosted with good hosting. Another cause is the type of hosting or web hosting provider you choose. If you opt for one that offers you good RAM memory, a large capacity hard drive, SSL certificate, and security among other resources, you should not have any problem with the speed of your site.
In another article, we talked about the importance of having optimized images and, in general, all the multimedia content that we upload to our online store, as well as a series of tools to reduce weight without affecting their quality and resolution. If we have many products, they will surely present several images and even videos to facilitate the description of the product. As we add multimedia content if it’s not optimized, it’s going to slow down the web, that’s for sure. If you work with Prestashop, the loading speed is guaranteed.
Tools to perform the load time test
Now, yes! The tool that you can use to measure the speed and load time of your website is PageSpeed Insights. It is free and official from Google which shows you the data that is correct, the ones you should optimize, and the ones it advises you on which you could improve. The analysis is carried out for both the mobile device and the desktop. Just enter the URL of the site you want to check and you’re good to go. The advantage of using this Google service, in addition to the fact that it is free, is that it suggests points to optimize through a detailed record of what aspects are negatively influencing the loading speed. What’s more, it offers a Chrome browser extension.
Another tool to be able to analyze the speed is Gtmetrix. It offers a free analysis but it also has its PRO version. The good thing about this tool is that it compares the result with other sites that may be your competition. It analyzes the device, and the regions and offers weekly or monthly reports.
The Prestashop Optimizer module is used to clean useless data from our database and therefore optimize it so that our store goes better. The advantage of this module is that we can decide which data to delete and which not, thus keeping the important ones and getting rid of the irrelevant ones. It improves performance and capacity by 80%, so after installing and configuring this module, data such as information about user browsing, abandoned shopping carts or other types of analysis can be eliminated, lightening the loading speed of your e-commerce.
Now all you have to do is put these tips and tools into practice so that your online store is faster and, above all, more “usable” and pleasant for your customers.
