Do You Decrease Sales By Slowing Down Your Blog?

I came across a travel blog a few moments ago.

I literally aged 10 years before it loaded fully. Ok; I only aged 30 seconds. But 30 seconds is way too long to wait for a blog to load. People want everything yesterday. We live in a fast-paced culture. Phones load sites pronto. Even laptops load most sites fast.

How in the heck can you increase blogging sales by testing reader patience? Terrible idea bloggers, because most readers are as patient as a puppy chasing a shiny red balloon. Be honest. Do you decrease your blogging sales by slowing down your blog? Most bloggers slow down their blog by loading it with too many dynamic ads, heavy widgets and all manner of income channels that totally kill the user experience. Does making 1 grand a month through slow loading, dynamic ads seem worth it if you send 40% of your readers off into cyber space, for good, with your pitiful blog load speed?

No need to guarantee lightning-fast load times but making people wait for your site to load guarantees stunted, muted blog growth, at best. People simply close your blog to find a quick-loading, simple blog adopting a clean theme. Blogs need to be fast-loading, informative and credible. Experiencing a snail slow load time that makes molasses on a winter day feel like Niagara Falls annoys and turns off most readers. Annoyed readers close out your blog, never to return again.

Travel Blog Culprits

Like the blog I spied a few moments ago, travel blogs generally seem to be big culprits for loading slowly and eating into your profits. Travel blogger ad networks display painfully slow loading, big, heavy, dynamic ads that cause your blog to load in 35 seconds versus 1.5 seconds. Most readers leave after 10 seconds, let alone 35. That means a ton less traffic, slower sales, and reduced profits.

Travel bloggers usually have such a heavy attachment to ad revenue that these folks delude themselves into thinking that 90% of their audience will stick around to wait for a slow-loading ad to render properly. Not true. Most readers vanish. Who has time to wait so long? The more folks leave your blog quickly, the more your sales slow down.

Develop a Vision for a Greater Future

Most bloggers fear losing $2000 in ad revenue monthly by deleting heavy-loading, dynamic ads. But the $5000 in other revenue streams you make is well worth the advertising purge. Develop a vision for a greater blogging future.

See beyond today. Scrap heavy ads. Sure you lose your 2 g’s in monthly revenue for a little bit. But you GAIN more readers, traffic, and profits over the long term because increased blog traffic and newer, more seamless income streams net you bigger blogging profits, over the long haul.

Let go the good. Make room for the great. Following this simple concept can help you speed up your blog AND speed up your blogging profits, too.

Strip

Let go to grow. Strip your blog of leaden ads, images and anything that does not clearly align 100% with your brand. Invest in a VPS or quality premium hosting, at a minimum. Be about speeding things up. Stop slowing things down by clinging to stuff.

The simplest but most uncomfortable way to speed up your blog is to patiently master the concept of release. Far from demanding you be as detached as a Buddhist monk, release is just about spotting what needs to go from time to time and trashing it. I run a super bare-bones, lightning-fast loading blog. But I needed to strip away more trash than a garbageman from my sidebar to create this seamless, prospering user experience.

eBook

Do you want to know how to make money with your blog? Confused about what income streams to open? Let me give you clarity. I wrote an eBook to list 15 ways to make money blogging. Buy it here:

15 Ways to Make Money Blogging