5 Ways Slow Networks Impact Businesses

Slow networks within businesses are frustrating for everyone using them, and nobody wants to wait five minutes for their web page to load!

More than being frustrating, having a slow network can impact your business in multiple areas, which is why it's well worth taking the time to address your network cabling rather than just putting up with it.

Decreased productivity

If your network performance isn't up to scratch, it will take your employees longer to carry out tasks.

If web pages are taking a long time to load, this extra time is added to the time it takes your employee to carry out the task, and not only is they likely to lose concentration and become frustrated when this happens. This adds still more time to the task and also affects employee morale.

It's estimated that the average office worker loses 40 minutes per day to a poor internet connection! Per person, this equates to around three working weeks, which is a huge loss for any business.

Loss of sales

Slow networks will not only affect your employees; they will affect your customers, too.

If you are running your company website from a server on your network, and that network has poor performance, it means that your website will be slower as a result.

Studies have shown that slow page load speeds directly impact conversion rates. This means that you could be losing your hard-earned sales by having a slow network and, therefore, a slow web page. It's estimated that if the load time on Amazon.com were increased by just one second, it could lose the $1.6bn in revenue each year, which is huge!

The numbers are likely to be smaller for most businesses, but the principle remains the same. Increasing your network performance and, therefore, your website load speed is essential if you want all of your hard work generating sales to pay off.

Impact on user experience

Not only could a slow website lose your sales, but it could damage your reputation with your customers.

User experience, which is how easy and enjoyable a person finds your website to use, is a vital part of building your reputation with your customers and building their trust in you as a company.

For people looking to build trust with new customers, a great user experience is an important part of the puzzle. Think about it, if you don't know much about a company and then have a bad experience on their website, it could easily lead you to assume that they aren't the sort of company you want to deal with. Alternatively, if a website is easy to use and you can quickly find everything you need, then working with that company is a no-brainer!

If you are concerned that poor network performance impacts your user experience, then schedule a consultation with JabberComm to get some expert advice.

Impact on SEO ranking

Having a slow website can also impact your website's search engine optimization.

Although the exact nature of the algorithm that Google uses to determine search engine ranking is a closely guarded secret, they have confirmed that page load speed is a factor. So, if your webpage performance is slow due to a network problem, it could mean that you are lower down in the search engine results than your competitors.

Google's job is to return the best possible results to the people using its services, which means websites containing relevant information that are easy for people to use. If Google kept returning slow or unresponsive web pages, people would soon start using a competing search engine, and Google would lose out as a result.

Affects the opportunity for future growth

Finally, having a slow network can seriously impact your opportunities for growth in the future. The most successful businesses make the most out of new technologies, most of which are web-based, and which can consume a huge amount of bandwidth.

As well as improving employee productivity, customer experience, and SEO ranking, taking the time to optimize your network performance now means that you will be in the position to take advantage of new technologies and grow your business in the future.