How important is the speed of a website?

Who hasn’t happened to go to a website and get impatient for the lack of speed. This is certainly one of the phenomena to be controlled and “measured”.
The average loading time of a web page is 2.5 seconds; the higher the time, the higher the page abandonment rate.
Loading speed can also affect SEO and SERP.

So how do you measure the speed of a website?

Users who arrive on a site must find a way to navigate easily and to be able to consult the pages in a simple, intuitive and fast way.
Loading a website is part of the User Experience.
The speed of a website is classified among those technical components that are the basis of a good website structure.

To measure speed, some determining factors must be taken into account:

1. Server and performance
   The server is the machine where a site is hosted. When a user accesses a site, his browser (Chrome, Safari, Firefox …) sends a request to the server, asking to download all the information and contents in order to view the pages of the site. If the server is slow, the site loading will be slow.
2. Connection and number of users
   Obviously, the connection to access a website is crucial, even if at a time the number of user accesses to the site is high (the greater the number, the greater the “effort” required from the server).
3. Heavy images
   Unfortunately, not many understand that the size and quantity of images residing on a site are fundamental! We can write endlessly on this point, but surely a good resolution, size and storage in the same folders can be a first starting point.
4. Plugin or heavy functionality
   And already, in many cases and on many frameworks, the number of plugins or even the presence of sophisticated algorithms can affect the speed of a website.
5. Updates
   Last, but not least, is the update regarding the CMS and its plugins.

There are various tools to measure and optimize the speed of a website but it is essential to identify all the causes to start to avoid a slowdown of the site.