Much like trending topics on twitter, conversion is a huge topic of conversation for e-commerce business. How can we increase traffic and conversion rate are the top two things an online company is usually focused on. One of the most overlooked aspects of both of those is site speed. Not only does site speed affect the way search engines crawl your site, but it also affects conversion rate.

Typical aspects that may affect site speed are server issues, internet providers, bandwidth and a huge topic is load time. Shoppers expect your page to load fast, whether they are shopping on a typical desktop or laptop, as well as mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. With nearly 10% of shopping now done via mobile device, you're going to want to make sure your site is up to speed.

Here are some quick tips to improve site speed.

1) Use a CDN or content delivery network- For those unfamiliar, these are web servers in separate locations that react to the needs of the content. The server responds based upon which can react the quickest and most accurate.

2) Minimize redirects- It is best to only keep redirects that are absolutely necessary, otherwise remove the page in question. There is no need for multiple redirects to one page. For example, if the target is page A, pages B and C should redirect directly to A, rather than some other course of direction.

3)Reduce DNS Lookups- The browser cannot complete any actions until the DNS is done looking up the IP address for the hostname. Try reducing the number of hostnames to increase page speed. Try A/B testing to figure out which pages are the slowest and then test them after changes are made.

In this infographic by wireless internet provider Zing Broadband, they take a look at how a load time of something as simple as 1 second, can impact your site. The larger your site is, the bigger the impact on your site is for a conversion.

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