Is your page load time driving visitors away?

Visitors to your Web site vote with their mouse. Is your site too slow to load? Is your design awkward for smaller browsers? Your visitors will be out before you know it. See how Google Analytics can help.

Why this matters? Matt Cutts from Google hinted that Google is considering a new ranking factor in its algorithm. The new ranking factor has to do with how fast a site or page load, with faster loading sites given a ranking boost. Google currently draws on over 200 criteria to order search results. Check page load times today to future-proof your SERP positions.

Step 1: Hone in on 'new visitors'

First, sign in to your Google Analytics account and select a Website profile. From your dashboard, unfold the ‘Advanced Segments’ tab in the top right section of your screen and click the ‘New Visitors’ segment. Unselect the ‘All Visits’ checkbox if it your default selection.

Segments let you group certain types of visits together and filter the data shown in your reports. Selecting the ‘New Visitors’ segment allows you to hone in on visits and browsing habits from new visitors alone. Focusing on first-time visitors to your Web site helps you get a feel for their initial reaction - first impressions matter.

Step 2: Is your site too slow to load?

Google Analytics shows browsing habits by network connection speed. Get a feel for how connection speeds impact the bounce rate, page views and average time spent on site. Click the ‘Visitors’ tab on the left hand side, and run the ‘Connection Speeds’ report to access summary statistics by connection speed.

You want to compare the bounce rate, page views and time spent on site against site-wide averages. Site-wide averages for visits from new visitors are shown in bold immediately above the table. You could also click the ‘Comparison’ tab above the table to run comparisons in bar-charts. If users on slow connection speeds experience higher bounce rates, or browse fewer pages, your site may be too slow to load.

Step 3: Check document size

The Firefox Developer Add-on comes with a useful tool that returns the size of a Web page. Simply point your browser to the page you want to assess, and click the ‘View Document Size’ option in the Developer Add-on to return page size. The tool does a fantastic job at breaking page size down across documents, images, objects, scripts and style sheets, which makes it easy to spot what is slowing down page load times.