Chances are that there are several other dental clinics in your neighbourhood, and the competition is fierce. This is why a dental website is vital. However, it’s no good having a website that takes an age to load. In essence, speed matters! In fact, 47% of consumers expect a website to load within 2 seconds. This is why you should consider improving website page speed.
Did you know that more than 95% of consumers learn more about a local dentist through online channels than anywhere else? So, when deciding which dentist to choose, your potential patients will first search online for available dentists in their locale. And then shortlist their choices and choose a dentist who meets their needs.
A good dental website should step up to command a visitor’s attention, capturing their contact details, and allowing you to market to them at a later date. It’s your first step to making a solid first impression, but that’s only possible when your web development team offers speed optimisation for your site.
So, what happens when your website is slow or outdated?
In effect, an outdated or slow website load speed will affect your bottom line, simple!
Continue reading to uncover the significance of website speed and why you need to work on improving website page speed.
Why your website developers should prioritise page speed optimization?
Patients and consumers care more about website speed than anything else on your dental site. Visitors will leave a website when it takes too long to load. Not only this, even search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing consider website speed when ranking your website in search results.
Moreover, a slow website kills your marketing efforts. A study by Aberdeen Group revealed that even a second of delay in page loading results in roughly 11% fewer page views, that’s more than a 15% decline in customer satisfaction.
So, what can you do to make sure your website loads quickly, and how improving website page speed can impact your overall online reputation?
Two things; firstly, opt for optimal speed optimisation and secondly, work on improving website page speed.
What Causes A Slow Website?
There are a number of reasons that can slow your website speed. Factors include poorly written scripts, bulky site code, large media files, and un-optimised CSS to name but a few. However, in most cases, a slow and lagging website typically stems from the inadequacy of the web host. Hence, it’s more important to ensure your dental website is hosted through a high-quality hosting service or company. As a result, the website will achieve speed optimisation while delivering peak performance, even during high loads.
Besides, including too many media files on just a single web page causes an extra delay in loading time. Not only this, even JavaScript files, HTML codes, CSS styles, and other page elements impact page speed. Also, the content published on your dental website contributes to the loading speed.
Remember, a website loads each page and its elements piece by piece rather than all at once. So, keep your dental website simple and add fewer heavy media files to achieve optimal optimisation and enhance website speed with performance.
Website speed optimisation Is the key
Page speed and website speed are similar; however, website speed focuses on how speedily a visitor can navigate through your dental web pages from the first click to the final lead.
On the contrary, page speed concentrates on optimising specific web page attributes in order to reduce load times.
Therefore, great website speed delivers a seamless end experience to the consumer and helps dentists navigate potential patients through the funnel with the desired outcome.
Significance of a fast dental website
When you improve page speed, a fast website has the competency to deliver easy and straightforward navigation to your potential patients. Remember, it’s all about the user experience (UX) Bear in mind that it should also provide the ultimate customer service and help you build a reputation for service.
We, as humans, are impatient. Numerous analytics and insights point to the fact that we want to access information things faster, particularly in the online landscape when using search engines. Research has proven that when your dental website takes longer to load, the likelihood of a visitor ‘bouncing’ off is extremely high, and they start to look for alternatives with every increasing second of delay.
In the long run, optimised website speed results in higher revenues.
Ways to improve page speed
There are numerous tools and techniques that one can apply to achieve a better optimisation score. First and foremost, start with resizing and compressing all your images, videos, and other media content on your dental website. This will ensure that all the images load faster, resulting in speed optimisation. Additionally, enable browser caching for web pages which allows the website’s essential elements to be stored in the user’s browser; this ultimately helps to improve page speed.
Also, deactivate WordPress extensions and plugins that aren’t needed anymore and don’t impact customisation, capabilities, and performance. Certainly, code minimisation is the way forward in achieving digital efficiency and optimising website speed.
Need Help?
Ensure your visitors are not frustrated with a slow-loading dental website. Instead, give them a fully-optimised webpage by improving website page speed with the above-listed techniques and industry-leading practices.
Are you looking for a leading dental marketing agency in Australia capable of building a high-performing and super-fast dental website for your practice? Talk to our experienced professionals at Mediboost.
Our healthcare marketers and SEO experts have years of experience in working closely with medical businesses including dentists. You could say that we’re experts in helping you grow your business by bringing more leads to your dental practice.
Are you ready to take the next step and improve your page speed? Call Mediboost now on 1300 163 058 to book an appointment.
References
NeilPatel.com – How Loading Time Affects Your Bottom Line
https://neilpatel.com/blog/loading-time
SEO Tribunal – Stars To Understand SEO
https://seotribunal.com/blog/stats-to-understand-seo/#local-seo-facts
Forbes.com – Don’t Let A Slow Website Kill Your Bottom Line
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerdooley/2012/12/04/fast-sites
