An excerpt from "Turning Visits Into Action - Proven strategies, tactics, and techniques for improving Web site conversion ratios."
Many people building Web sites today think of a site's speed in terms of how long it takes pages to fully display. Much can be done to make a Web site "technically" fast, resulting in a better user experience and better conversion ratios. A Web site's "technical" speed is a function of the servers it resides on, the coding of the pages, and the size and number of graphics used. There are literally thousands of sources for tools, tips, and techniques for making graphics and page code as small as possible. Taking the time to learn and apply these techniques should be part of any conversion ratio improvement effort.
Technical speed is extremely important, but perceived speed is what the user actually experiences. While two Web sites may perform identically on a technical level, their perceived speeds may be very different from a user's perspective.
On a technical level, the home pages of Site A and Site B each take 10 seconds to fully load in a user's browser. The file size of the graphics on each page is identical, as is the weight of the underlying page code. Server response is also identical. However, Site A's home page is constructed using a single, invisible table to provide the entire page layout. This is a fairly common method of constructing pages to maintain a consistent layout and design. But, in rendering this page, the browser will remain blank until it has downloaded enough of the page code to construct the entire table. Site B's home page is built a bit differently. Instead of using one large table, the layout is constructed using a series of smaller tables aligned next to and on top of one another. When loading this page, the browser can begin displaying each table as soon as it is received.
From a user's perspective, Site B will be perceived as being much faster. While taking the same amount of time to display the complete page, Site B will begin displaying portions of the page almost immediately. The table containing the page header may display within the first 2 seconds. The table containing the side-bar may appear after 4 seconds. The table containing the body of the page may not completely render until the full 10 seconds have passed, but from the user's perspective, the site began responding in 2 seconds. Differences in perceived speed can have dramatic effects on conversion ratios.
The site managers of one commerce site determined from their server logs that 25% of all people accessing the home page bounced. That is, 1000 of the 4000 daily visitors exited the site without going any further than the home page. 1000 visitors were not being fully exposed to the site's sales process. The managers tried a number of different modifications to the content on the home page with little effect. They developed a hunch that people may be leaving before even seeing what was on the home page. In other words, the home page may be taking too long to load in the user's browser, causing the user to abandon the site in frustration or haste before being presented with any information.
The pages on this site were constructed using the "single table" approach outlined in the previous example. While the site managers took great pains to insure that the entry page on their site was as small as possible, they decided to test a different approach in the structure of the page. In their test, they broke up the page into a series of smaller tables - a header, a side-bar, and a body. With the additional code for the new tables, this approach added a small amount to the file size of the page itself. But because of the changes, the header and side-bar of the page now popped up in the browser almost immediately, greatly adding to the perceived speed of the site.
After making these structural modifications, the number of people exiting the site at the home page dropped to 15%. Now, 400 more people per day were actually viewing the content on the home page and being drawn further into the site. As expected, the conversion rate of the site went up. The site had been generating 150 orders per day on 4000 visitors per day - 1000 of which were bouncing off. After the modifications, the site was generating nearly 170 orders per day on the same level of traffic. By modifying the site structure to get more visitors actually into the site's sales process, the site managers had increased their conversion ratios and the revenue generated.
Another determining factor in perceived speed is navigation. A clear and intuitive navigational structure makes your site seem faster and more responsive. Remember that a user is to trying to achieve a goal. The navigational elements of your site provide the map the user will use in achieving their goal. If you provide a confusing map, it will take your users longer to achieve their goals. If it takes ten minutes to find a piece of content on your site because of confusing navigation, visitors will judge your site to be slow no matter how technically fast your site may really be. Conversely, your site may have slower technical response times, but if visitors can intuitively go right to the information they're looking for, they will perceive your site as being fast. A road racing team with a fast car and a bad road map will likely lose to a team with a slower car and an accurate map.
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