Tech

Website speed is a measure of how fast your website loads once someone is directed to it; either by clicking a link or via typing out your URL. On average, a website takes about 22 seconds to fully load on a mobile and 9.3 seconds on a desktop.  The few seconds that pass when we wait for a site to load can feel short and insignificant, or they can feel endless and become the tipping point for your website’s performance, and the experience your users leave with. What a few seconds can do 1. To your Consumers  Seemingly ignoring the average time taken by a website to load, research shows that 53% of mobile users leave a page if the loading time exceeds 3 seconds- meaning more than half of your visitors decide to leave your page before even seeing it. This happens regardless of how popular your site may be- Google themselves experienced a 20% drop in traffic due to a miniscule fall in the website’s speed by 0.5 seconds.  The whole point of having a website is to generate organic web traffic to gain ROI, and in this fast paced world people are only willing to give you a few seconds to do this. Thus, keeping your loading time under 22 seconds would be ideal, but under 3 seconds would be perfect. Take any longer, and customers become irritable, and are more likely to switch to your competitors.  Besides that, bad news tends to spread fast; so one negative experience is bound to reach the rest. According to The White House office of Consumer Affairs- dissatisfied customers tend to tell 9-15 people about a negative experience, and some even go as far as telling 20 or more- all it takes is a single second to set your business up with a negative reputation. 2. To your Ranking Another important element that determines the traffic you generate is your visibility- which is affected by your ranking, and speed is now a ranking factor. Search engines like google understand consumers’ need for speed, and that faster websites provide better experiences. Therefore, they prioritize them and take it upon themselves to reward websites that load quickly by giving them a better ranking. A site that takes a long time to load is bound to have a high bounce rate; which is the rate at which people enter your site, but then go back to the SERP (Search Engine Results Page). Research shows that there is a resultant increase in this rate by 113% as the loading time for a page increases from a mere 1-7 seconds. The search engine gathers that this is a negative response from the consumers, and thus causes your ranking to fall.  However, if your site appears to be providing positive customer satisfaction in these sectors, your ranking will be boosted. To find out more ways to improve your ranking, check out our article containing 5 Tips for Ranking First on Google. 3. To your Conversions Another goal when it comes to generating traffic is creating conversions- which occurs when visitors convert by completing desired actions; such as making a purchase, signing up for newsletters or filling out forms. However, if you are experiencing a loss in traffic or consumer satisfaction, then the probability of your conversions falling increases. Since we already know that slow websites are significant deterrents of traffic, it can be concluded that they also repel conversions. As shown above, millions of dollars in revenue are lost each year due to people abandoning their online shopping carts, and it is just a few seconds of waiting that make this difference. Thus, time is quite literally money, and for every miniscule amount by which the loading time for a website increases, a business will lose out on possible revenue. Now that you know what can happen in just a few seconds, take it upon yourself to test your own website’s speed and see if it needs any improvement. Website Testing Tools Timing your website with a stopwatch would prove to be unideal, so take to the internet to find tools that will do it for you, and tell you what’s slowing you down. While there are plenty out there, we’ve gathered the 3 most reliable ones below for your own perusal. 1. GTmetrix  This speed testing site is free, easy to use and very straight forward; all you have to do is enter your URL, and it shows you your results in a graded format so you can understand whether the feedback is negative or positive. The results are accurate and can be discernible even if you don’t know too much about the components that affect speed. Upon showing you your results, the site gives you the option of viewing the average- so you can see where you stand in the spectrum of things. Along with the issues, the site also provides suggestions on how to fix them. While the default testing location is set in Vancouver, Canada, you can change the location upon creating an account to see how your site performs in various target locations. The accounts comes in the silver, bronze, gold and custom plans. There are also options to change your browser, and simulate various types of connections and devices down to the model and resolution. These filters can be saved- avoiding the hassle of having to fill them in every time you need to test your website’s speed. The account also provides additional options of blocking out advertisements so you can observe how they affect your site, and even allows you to record your page as it loads; creating a video which you can rewatch at a slower pace to pinpoint any issues. 2. Pingdom Pingdom too is simple and easy to use, as well as understand. Its free speed test provides different testing locations, a grade breakdown of your results, and it lists out the issues with your site and helpfully pairs them with suggestions for improvements. The site also allows

If you’ve come here from our article on why your restaurant needs a website, you’re already informed on why you’re doing any of this- a clear vision of what you could accomplish could keep you from falling behind, or even being too excessive. With this in mind, it’s also important to understand that what would work for one restaurant may not work for the other.  We’ve put everything you should be thinking about when deciding what goes into your website into 4 categories: So let’s get into what your website needs! 1. Theme  Your website should be able to embody the essence of your restaurant- giving people a taste of what it’s like to dine with you from the comfort of, well, wherever they are.  Use your design and layout to set the ambience of your physical setting through a screen; from the colours and fonts you use to the style you write in- your content can say a lot about you.  Needless to say, one’s website for a fine dining restaurant should not be mistaken for that of a burger joint, and if such a thing occurs, well, one would be in dire need of a makeover. For example, the website of a casual setting could use warm colours to emit a relaxed atmosphere, heightened by the use of a conversing tone riddled with colloquialisms- light and friendly. On the other hand, the website of a high-end restaurant should exude class and elegance. Its content should maintain a formal tone- matched to the elegance of a colour scheme that isn’t a loud red and yellow like some of our favourite fast-food chains, but subtle neutrals that you wouldn’t associate with your Friday night cravings. Your vibe attracts your tribe, so make sure that your aesthetic will appeal to the people you’re trying to draw in. Tie it all together with consistency, and you’ve got yourself an effective theme. 2. Mobile Optimization Realistically, not everyone lugs their laptop around with them, and even if they do, it isn’t likely that they’ll pull it out to quickly lookup a restaurant when they could just slip out their phones and do the same thing. To support this is the fact that we are more likely to own a mobile phone as opposed to a laptop, and are more inclined towards using the convenient, already-in-your-back-pocket option while on the move- which, usually, we are.  Thus, with most of your potential customers being on their mobile devices, catering to their convenience makes sense. Not doing so would just irritate any visitors with the low loading speed and poor performance; basically handing them reasons to leave your site.  Inconvenience is not a good enough reason for someone to reject you- thus, you should invest in a more responsive design that will increase customer satisfaction. 3. Easy Navigation Think about how people have a tendency to get a little gluttonous at buffets, and eventually end up nauseated with a plate full of more food than they can eat. The same goes for websites; if you’ve included every feature available on your website just because you can, you’ve overserved.  Navigating through your website should not feel like trying to solve a Japanese puzzle box, as it’s unlikely that your customers will want to go through your winding, convoluted site when they’re already in the car. Although conventional web design may seem like the oppressor of creative expression, it provides a level of functionality that works well- which is why you’d still be able to navigate through a Russian website far enough to turn the language to English.  Keep your design simple, clear, and convenient. Give your users multiple options for navigation in the header and footer so they can get to wherever they need to be without having to start all over again each time. They should not be able to empathize with Ibn Battuta by the time they’ve found your menu. 4. SEO Having a website would be pointless if people could only find your restaurant through its name alone. You want to be able to appear as a suggestion as well, and in order to do this, the search engine needs to acquire information from your site relating to the query of the searcher. Make sure that when creating your content, you align your keywords with your restaurant’s distinguishable features- perhaps through its geographical location or niche, so when people search for things like “Italian places near me” or “Romantic restaurants”, your site pops up. To aid your SEO further, add your restaurant on other online directories- they’ll lead more people to your site, and make it easier for them to discover you. You could start out with a Google Business account and then move on to other directories such as TripAdvisor and Zomato. To delve a little deeper into this topic, check out our article on how SEO works. 5. Being Informative  Apart from the requirements aforementioned, we’ve compiled a list of features that many users would agree are vital to creating the ideal customer experience. Consider this your check-list, and markdown what improvements your site could be missing out on. Service Hours Tell customers your regular opening and closing hours, and let them know the days on which you won’t be available; whether that might be public holidays, religious festivals or even just Mondays. At the same time, you could also inform customers about your busiest hours so they know the right time to come to you. Additional information to include here would be a rough estimation of service time so customers can set their expectations for how long they’ll have to wait for their food. Menu Maintain a clear, updated menu on your website which includes pricing and tax charges, and avoid attaching it as PDF that requires downloading- instead, have it open in a new tab. Be informative and open about what goes into your dishes as some customers could have dietary requirements and restrictions, and knowing that they’ll have options to