RelationShip of Blog Load TimeTo Visitor Numbers

It is so easy to get carried away adding widgets, videos and to many other graphics links to your blog , it makes it look like a fun place to visit with lots to look at BUT

Here are few things to remember

When you visit a blog or website graphics are often cached on your own computer so the next time you visit the page will load faster ( so you will see a different blog page load time than first time visitors )

Just because you have a fast internet connection not everybody does

The more posts you have on your blog home page the longer that page takes to load and if each one of those posts has a couple of Photos it all makes a difference

Widgets are a great thing to have but if the site where you are getting them from is not fast your page could take for ever to load

It is thought that Google and other Search Engines do take into account page load times when evaluating how high up in search engine results a page should be ( this is to make sure the user experience leaving via a Search Engine Result is as good as it can be ) NOT PROVEN but for example we do know it is used in Quality Score when measuring Add Quality on the Adwords Network

AND the most important reason is a large number of visitors will go to a site or blog and if it does not appear to load instantly they will leave.

One other little thing to note is that if you are running adsense and your visitor leaves your site / blog before it has all finished loading and this happens a lot It may well effect how much Google Pays per click ( Part of Smart pricing Algo I will talk about at a later date )

So how can you help

1. If you do put a large number of Photos in your blog posts then display less posts on the home page ( set up via Settings - Formating on Blogger )

2. Widgets a re a great tool for helping the stickiness of a blog but use them sparingly and check how long they take to load.

3. Use the hack I discussed in an earlier post to display less on your Posting pages

4. Try very hard to look at your blog as a visitor who has never visited would and be critical of your own work ( hard I know as most bloggers are so proud of their work and achievement )

Most of the things I discuss are very much my own opinion and gained from my personal experiences over 9 years working with others and for myself on Website Projects