How Load Time Differences Impact User Retention Based on Server Infrastructure?

In the age of hyper broadband, 5G, and wi-fi, many users think slow load times are relics of the past, but, unfortunately, they are not. With these technological improvements, up to 40% of website visitors will abandon a website if it doesn’t load within three seconds, according to Big Commerce. This high bounce rate negatively impacts a website’s SEO rank, which brings less traffic to the website, as you can see in the image below. Not only does your website fail to bring in as much organic traffic in the first place, but slow load speeds impact user retention, conversion rates, and customer satisfaction. Thus, you must do everything you can to ensure your website loads as quickly as possible if you want to succeed.

A strong correlation exists between load times, server infrastructure, and user retention. In today’s post, we discuss how slow load speeds impact these variables and how to speed up your website significantly. The first step is to determine how quickly pages on your website load by using a tool like Semrush or Google Search Console (which provides a wealth of other website health information and is free). Once you know what you’re dealing with, it’s time to start working to improve the general health of your website, including load speed.

Below is an example of this type of report, which contains not only your website performance but suggestions for improving performance. The colors help you focus on those aspects of your website speed that have the most impact on your website’s performance.

Slow load times result in poor user retention

In the late 1990s, Internet users were happy if their favorite website would load at all. They were even happier if their dial-up access allowed them to complete their task without losing the connection. Today (as mentioned), Google Consumer Insights reveals that 40% of website visitors abandon a page if it loads in more than three seconds. Poorly optimized server infrastructure can slash your website’s conversion rate by 80%, mainly owing to constantly falling user retention.

Adverse user experience

A slow-loading front page is a huge red flag for online shoppers. They are bound to think that the other online store sections will be just as slow, so they bounce (leave without viewing any other pages). Along with other key factors, bounce rate negatively impacts your search rank and produces a long-term reduction in revenue. Luckily, this negative trend can be reverted with an appropriate server configuration.

A slow load speed also suggests to visitors that you’re unprofessional, which makes them question the quality of your products and lowers conversion rates. As you can see in the graphic below, this is especially important for Gen Z users, who expect fast load speeds, among other factors in making purchase decisions.

Optimized server infrastructure boosts load times.

Many website owners prematurely assume that their load times solely depend on their web hosting plan. Although your choice of web host does have a significant impact on load speed, proper server infrastructure and configuration come first. Some of this is a function of your web host and the infrastructure choices they make, such as the ones below.

Server location

If users in the USA used US-based servers only, they would experience almost zero latency. This speeds up your website to provide better SEO and better security. However, this is practically impossible as most web hosting companies have servers all over the world. They try to ensure optimal uptime, so they may transition your website to another server if necessary to ensure your website almost never goes dark.

For instance, optical cable highways traverse the ocean bottoms and sea beds to connect supercomputers worldwide. These data hubs then use Content Delivery Networks or CDNs. They act as caches of website content, so less data must travel the whole distance between the server and the end user. Thus, the website is delivered from the server closest to the user’s location to cut load speeds.

You might also use a CDN to cache your website, especially images, as a means to speed up your website. This is called browser caching and works by caching a copy of the website during the user’s first visit to speed up load times. By caching images, users don’t have to wait for the website or images to load (especially if you use lazy loading). The result is that the content is available more quickly than without caching.

Capacity and scalability

Website load times can increase under the pressure of traffic hikes, especially around Christmas or Thanksgiving when traffic demands increase . You can prevent this by implementing some vertical scaling: purchase more RAM or increase the processing speed of your server.

And if your local machine cannot be beefed up anymore, it’s time to consider horizontal scaling: add more servers to share the traffic load. This Infrastructure requires some IT knowledge to set up, but it offers far greater flexibility.

Set up your server for intense traffic

Make sure your server has enough caching memory and that its databases are optimized. Appropriate server configuration reduces data fetching times by 67%. If scaling horizontally, you should also employ an efficient server load-balancing tool. Modern application delivery controllers redirect and route the traffic to your site while protecting it against malware attacks.

Choose an appropriate hosting type

As a rule, dedicated hosting provides a steadier performance at times of high website traffic. Cloud hosting is also an option, as it offers more room for mobile optimization. Shared hosting is often the solution of choice as it’s the least expensive option. Shared hosting means that multiple websites share the costs of hosting, which slows your website down as the server seeks to satisfy all the demands made to deliver the many websites it houses. This choice can prove expensive in the long run because every second delay in load time slashes your user retention rate by 7%.

The importance of mobile optimization

Over 90% of today’s Internet users browse websites on their mobile devices, so mobile view optimization is something no business can afford to overlook.

Mobile-centric lifestyle

Using mobile-specific caching and lightweight content can make your website reachable even from places with poor network quality. Thus, your site’s mobile user retention rate will improve significantly. Your site’s mobile-centric Infrastructure involves installing appropriate page navigation touch buttons and optimizing home page titles to fit on small mobile screens. As 5G speeds constantly increase, your site no longer needs to block Java scripts.

Google ranking and CLTV

The longer your website takes to load, the lower its Google ranking. By contrast, fast-loading sites rank higher in a Google search and boast high user engagement. CLTV, or customer lifetime value, epitomizes the correlation between server infrastructure, website load times, and user retention rate.

CLTV stands for the number of times a particular customer will revisit a website to purchase goods or services. Online supermarkets and global pizza chains like Domino’s are the undisputed CLTV champions. To achieve a sustainable CLTV rate, your website should regularly launch promo codes and send discount coupons to returning customers.

Conclusion

Speeding up your website results in higher revenue by attracting more visitors as well as user retention. In this post, we outlined some ways you can speed up your website to improve performance and security.

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