Fast is always better when it comes to a website.

But what does fast mean?

Ideally, your website needs to load somewhere between 2 and 5 seconds.

Industry-leading sites load about 1.8 seconds on average.

What happens if your site loads slowly? Disaster! Basically, the likelihood of someone leaving your website increases exponentially the slower your site loads. Think of it this way, if your website loads between 1 and 3 seconds, about 32% increase in the potential of people leaving your site because of the time it takes. Increase that by 2 seconds to loading between 1 and 5 seconds and that percentage increases to a 90% increase in people leaving. That is a huge jump!

How do you test your website’s speed?

It is pretty simple. Just follow these steps:

1. Check the homepage of your website

Test the homepage using webpagetest.org and/or tools.pingdom.com and see if it loads in under 3 seconds. To learn more about how Google values speed, click here.

2. Check one of the category pages on your website

Test a category page using webpagetest.org and/or tools.pingdom.com and see if it loads in under 3 seconds. To learn more about how Google values speed, click here.

3. Check the desktop version of your website using Google PageSpeed

Test the desktop version of your website using Google PageSpeed and check to see if your stats are Green. To learn more about Google PageSpeed, click here.

4. Check the mobile version of your website using Google PageSpeed

Test the desktop version of your website using Google PageSpeed and check to see if your stats are Green. To learn more about Google PageSpeed, click here.

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How fast is your website?