In a world where everyone is looking for the edge that’ll deliver more customers more quickly, the little things make a big difference.

Take, for instance, the time it takes your business website to load.

Even two seconds can make a significant difference.

There’s a direct correlation between the amount of time it takes your page to load and the percentage of people who’ll abandon your page.

They’re not impatient; they view load time as one of the indicators of your business’ ability to meet their needs.

Using a base figure of two seconds for loading, here is the impact of longer load times:

• 2 seconds to 4 seconds — increases page abandonment rates by 8 %
• 2 seconds to 6 seconds — page abandonment rate increases to 25%
• 2 seconds to 8 seconds — 33% of visitors will bail
• 2 seconds to 10 seconds — count on losing 38% of the people who wanted to check out your site.

There are many reasons a website can be sluggish.

But one thing is clear: IT issues can cost you dearly in your ability to keep prospective customers around long enough to get interested in your product or service.

Gomez, a site optimization company, has issued a white paper on web performance management that examines this and other aspects of optimization: Why Web Performance Matters: Is Your Site Driving Customers Away? (free registration required).

It includes a diagnostic you can apply to your company’s performance, to help identify areas that could benefit from more attention.

A sampling:

1. Do you know how competitors’ and industry leaders’ websites perform, and how you measure against their benchmarks?
2. Does your site deliver a consistent customer experience, regardless of browser type?
3. Do you know how mobile users are experiencing your site — across key devices, browser and service providers?
4. Is your site — including new promotions and/or new features — ready for peak traffic periods around major events, holidays and new ad campaigns?
5. Can you tie customer satisfaction levels to your website’s performance?

Tags: abandonment, Gomez, IT, site optimization