The best ecommerce websites deliver ultra-fast page speeds. When a site loads quickly, it's a sign that the company has invested resources into making it a great experience for customers. A slow loading site gives visitors time to become frustrated, question if this is the right company to trust to solve the problem, and ultimately opens enough of a window for customers to look elsewhere.

There are a handful of tools for checking and monitoring page speed, including Google PageSpeed Insights and GTMetrix. The PageSpeed tool is the mostly widely known and analyzes the sites loading performance on both mobile and desktop. GTMetrix analyzes pages from a handful of different evaluation standards, including PageSpeed and gives a score. Both tools provide a detailed list of the factors making up the score, including the biggest problem areas.

Generally, improving page speed requires optimizing images, rendering CSS and JS effectively, delivering elements asynchronously, and other backend customizations. Much of that is dependent on the sites' framework. Sites build on Shopify or Wordpress & Woocommerce generally take a lot of work to optimize and have a limited ceiling to performance. Jamstack sites like GatsbyJS sites are ultra fast from the start and take less work to optimize page speed from the start.

When there are any number of distractions just a click away, every fraction of a second is important. Delivering a fast site isn't just about speed. It's about convenience, trust and brand building. Each interaction is a chance to show off your brand. Make a great impression by prioritizing fast page speeds.