How important are your website’s loading time and render time? WordPress experts can tell you in just one word: very.
- A whopping surveyed say they’ll abandon a website that exhibits poor performance.1
- 73% of mobile internet users have come across a slow-loading website.2
- Nearly half of those surveyed expect a website to fully load in no more than two seconds.3
- Pages just one second slower in response time can experience a 7% drop in conversions.4
So yes, speed is important, but there are two factors in play. While we may refer to “load time” as the biggest influencer, render time also has a major impact on how quickly your audience can access crucial information.
Here’s what you need to know about render time vs. load time:
What is Load Time?
Page load time refers to the duration it takes for a web page to download and become accessible on a user’s browser. Load times can be affected by various factors, such as the size of data-heavy elements like images, JavaScript, and CSS. Large images and complex scripts may take longer to download, resulting in slower load times.
When you’re searching the web for a new recipe or information on the latest developments in net neutrality, you need a site to load before you can read content, click on a link, navigate from sub-page to sub-page and so on.
For a shopper looking to make a purchase, slow page load times serve as a substantial barrier, especially if those load times are repeated page after page. Those delays add up quickly.
The page load times of a website can vary significantly across different browsers, platforms, and locations. For instance, the same web page may exhibit varying load times when accessed through different browsers such as Chrome and Internet Explorer. Similarly, load times can differ between mobile and desktop platforms, as well as among users accessing the website from different geographical locations.
These variations highlight the importance of optimizing a website’s performance to ensure smooth and efficient loading across diverse browser environments, platforms, and global user base.
What is Render Time?
Like page load time, the term ‘render time’ refers to the amount of time it takes for a page to load or reload, but in this case, the metric is using a different endpoint: when visitors can actually use and interact with the page. This is an important distinction as load time will tell you how quickly a page is visible, but render time tells you how quickly your site is usable.
The recommended average render time for a website depends on several factors, including the complexity of the website, the amount and size of the content being loaded, and the user’s expectations and tolerance for waiting. Improving the render quality by adjusting the render settings can significantly impact the average render time of a website.
In general, it is recommended to aim for a fast and responsive website to provide a positive user experience.
Why Both Are Important
If you’re packing your site with third-party elements, load time may not be the most accurate way to understand how visitors experience your site. External content may still be loading after your on-site content is fully displayed. This is where audience perception comes into play. Readers will judge your site’s speed based on how quickly they see content, how quickly they can interact with that content (when they can click and get a result) and how easy it is to scroll without encountering an unresponsive page or broken media.
Take care of your audience by cleaning up your site and optimizing for speed. Streamlining the rendering process and page load times is crucial to provide a seamless and efficient user experience, however, this optimization process isn’t easy. After checking the site’s current speed, you’ll need to evaluate everything from image size to whether or not you’re using a content delivery network (CDN) or hosting your own videos.
Reach Out to the WordPress Experts
The public’s tolerance for slow load times has plummeted from eight seconds in 1999 to two seconds or less today. Are you losing leads due to poor speed? WP SitePlan’s WordPress speed optimization is just what you’re looking for to fix the problem.
[1] https://blog.kissmetrics.com/speed-is-a-killer/ [2] http://forum.fiverr.com/discussion/is-your-website-speed-sloware-you-looking-for-a-guy-to-fix-it/ [3] http://insights.wired.com/profiles/blogs/47-of-consumers-expect-a-web-page-to-load-in-2-seconds-or-less#axzz4O014A6gW [4] https://econsultancy.com/blog/10936-site-speed-case-studies-tips-and-tools-for-improving-your-conversion-rate/
