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Optimizing A Local Business Website – Speed Matters!

Search and discovery are becoming more and more important in today’s online marketplace. As such, website optimization is critical so your local business can be located by online users. And one critical component of that optimization is site speed.

I’ve said over and over that search and discovery should be the focus of every local business when it comes to online marketing. If others can’t find your business online, then it could be detrimental for your overall success. One key aspect of getting found online is website optimization, from creating a strong content and keyword strategy, to incorporating images and videos, to including call-to-actions and mobile capability. But one area that some local businesses miss is site speed.

If your local business webpage doesn’t load quickly, you’ll lose your webpage traffic’s attention

How many times have you landed on a website and became frustrated because it wasn’t loading quickly? Did you stay on the site and wait for it to load, or did you pass on it and go to another website instead? Many online users will do the latter, which isn’t good news for any local business who’s trying to generate leads and readers. This is why it’s important for local business owners to understand that side speed is HUGE and an important aspect of online optimization. Online users don’t like to wait and will quickly move on if they have to wait for even a few seconds.

You should have a mobile friendly local business webpage that loads quickly, as well

We often turn to our Smartphone instead of our computers to locate businesses online these days. With that being said, consumers also expect you to have a mobile webpage that loads quickly, as well. It can be frustrating for those who are on the road and trying to find information about your business, but you don’t have a mobile site available, or it’s slow.

How can you check your site speed and mobile capability?

Follow these two easy steps:

1. Test your site speed. Some free site speed testing tools include:

2. Build a mobile site that’s quick to load. There are several companies and resources available to help you build a mobile friendly site, including:

To emphasize even further, search and discovery are critical aspects to focus on for any local business marketing strategy, and site speed needs to be taken into consideration along with it. If your site doesn’t load quickly, then you’re sure to lose at least some of the impatient consumer base out there… and who can afford to lose leads for their business? Check out the resources provided here to ensure you have a site that loads quickly, as well as one that’s mobile friendly all the way around. By doing so, you’ll stay one step ahead of the competition to keep your target audience happy and engaged by giving them what they want.

Written By

For nearly three decades, Chris Marentis, founder and CEO of Surefire Social, has been responsible for driving innovation and sales growth for large media and e-commerce brands as well as start-ups. With a long-history of counseling local businesses about their marketing efforts, Marentis provides insight on what it takes for small businesses to succeed and thrive in today’s evolving digital environment. His notable career includes creating the foundational blueprints for online marketing, e-commerce and content branding for AOL's Interactive Marketing group, where he served as Senior Vice President. While CEO of Clearspring Technologies, Marentis developed one of the most widely adopted venture-backed Web 2.0 technology platforms. Marentis is a frequent speaker at local digital marketing conferences and a contributor to SMB and technology-focused publications.

8 Comments

8 Comments

  1. Nishadha

    July 12, 2012 at 6:09 am

    For local websites I think page load is one of the most critical factors simply because users now have so many other options available to them via the Internet.

  2. TracyAnn0312

    July 12, 2012 at 9:48 am

    Well I think that speed is really important because most clients need local establishments to work fast that has quality. Thanks for sharing it.

  3. Joseph Admin2

    July 13, 2012 at 11:32 am

    Very well said. PageSpeed is something we are continuously working on as search engines, particularly Google, tend to make it one of the most important factors in determining page ranks.

  4. sum

    July 15, 2012 at 1:27 pm

    very useful advice for otpimiser are local search on the site.
    with this kind of advice will make it easier to optimize the search engine for your regions. thank you for these wonderful tips.

  5. Phillip

    July 31, 2012 at 7:41 am

    The speed of page loading affects not only your visitors’ behaviour but also influence your rankings by search engines. The faster the better.

  6. Annie

    August 8, 2012 at 6:38 am

    I have been studying a lot about the importance of site speed, it is considered as an important optimization factor. Thanks for sharing some ideas of how we can improve it.

  7. Stephen

    August 21, 2012 at 7:14 pm

    Speed optimization for a website is a one of most critical factor for getting ranked in Search engines and to attention of traffic as well I have read it a lot before this. I have been studying a lot about this factor but have not came to with a conclusion. Chris Marentis can you tell me in detail how speed of a website helps in getting good ranked in search engine however I accept fast loading website attracts people.

  8. Daniel Anderson

    August 23, 2012 at 4:21 am

    yeah, it can be very fustrating for a user to wait for the website to load so long! I read an article before that portals do lose visitors if they take too long to load. And these ‘lost’ visitors will then visit your competitors. Second the mention about mobile friendly sites which need to load fast. we are on 3G, not wifi! so please make sure your site do not have a lot of images to load. best if you adopt a responsive UI

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