Ways your eCommerce loading speeds can impact your bottom line

55 лет назад

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Holidays are almost here and getting ready for Black Friday and Cyber Monday is crucial.

In the latest episode of the Data Rich podcast, AJ Yager and Spencer Connell talked with Robert Rand about how you can prepare your eCommerce store for the holidays.

Why is data important?
Everything in eCommerce is a blend of art and science. The numbers tell the story of how people feel about your art. Without going back and checking on the numbers, you'll never know how your efforts actually panned out.

Every company today is a data company; they just don't know it yet. The only way to properly scale in today's environment is to know your numbers and leverage them into growth. That doesn't mean that everyone needs to be a data expert, but it does mean that without data, the journey to a successful company is nearly impossible.

What are the top factors?

☑ Security: How healthy, safe, and secure is your website?
You never want to have a security or data breach, but during the holiday season a breach could obliterate your opportunities.

Every business should make sure that their eCommerce platform has the latest security patches downloaded and installed. The same way that you protect a physical store from people breaking in, you need to protect your digital store as well.

In the event that your security does fail, you need to have a short-list of the people that you can contact depending on the situation. It's important to know that these people will be available to help as well, even over the holidays.

☑ Scalability: Can you handle a growing amount of web traffic?
Many vendors offer this service, but JetRails specifically offers load testing. This allows them to simulate an influx of traffic to your site to see how it performs under pressure.

During the holiday season especially, this can mean the difference between success and failure. These tests allow you to see where you have structural issues with your site, and how you can combat them.

JetRails is offering a limited-time load test to Magento merchants for free through Praxis Metrics. Visit them here to get the free test.

☑ Loading speed: Does your site load in under three seconds?
Many merchants know that site speed is important, but they don't really invest in it. 53% of mobile users will leave a site if a page takes longer than 3 seconds to load.

When it comes to loading speed on your site, everything comes down to file sizes. If you can reduce the size of the information that you're sending, then you can increase your load speed times. This applies to both images and the code that you have on your site.

Unfortunately, every change that you make on your site can effect the loading speed of your site.

Does my web host have any effect on loading speed?
Unfortunately, yes. In addition to looking at the front-end loading of your site, you also need to look at how the back end of your site affects your load speed; specifically your web hosting.

JetRails tests a metric called "time to first byte", which allows them to look at how quickly the server is able to provide the first byte of data to the browser.

☑ Error monitoring: Spot and fix pages that aren’t loading
During the slow times on your website, it is valuable to have your web developers check your error logs and exceptions to see what errors could be lurking. We see a lot of people who wait until something breaks to fix it, but proactive maintenance can protect against a terrible issue.

☑ Shared resources: Is it time to adopt a dedicated server?
Long-term, it may make sense to move to a dedicated hosting environment. In shared hosting environments, you can't control the actions of those sharing your space. If another site introduces a security breach to the server, it can affect your site. If someone else on the server has a major traffic spike, they can eat up all of the resources and slow down your site.

☑ Uptime: How sure are you that you’ll be up 100% of the time?
Consumers have become less patient and more wary of sites that aren't reliable in their eyes. If your site is down at the moment that the customer wanted to purchase, they'll likely just move to a competitor to purchase.

Final thoughts and ways to take action-
Get a free load test from JetRails before the holidays. They'll help you see if your site is ready for the Black Friday and Cyber Monday rush.

Proactively monitor your site, specifically the CTAs that we mentioned. Make sure that you're checking in with both your developers, designers, and your web host to make sure that you're site performs optimally across the board.

At the end of the day it comes down to picking the right vendors, trusting them, and sleeping well at night.

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