So... your website speed is slow and someone (maybe your manager? maybe an SEO specialist?) has suggested it’s your chat widget that is the cause. We are here to break this down, debunk any myths, help you solve the problem and make you a Website Speed hero.
First of all, let’s talk about Site speed and SEO. Yes, slow site speed can impact your SEO ranking. However, it is not the only factor. Keywords, content, content formatting, backlinking, quality of content, ads, mobile responsiveness and technical SEO all have more or equal bearing on your Domain Authority or SEO Ranking than just site speed.
If you’ve ran a Google Page Speed Test or spoken with an expert and site speed is your issue, here are some of the key items that can impact that:
So, now that we’ve had that discussion and you can go back to your team more informed. Let’s discuss Chatbots and Live Chat.
First, you and your team must make a business decision, how important is it for you to have chat? Keeping in mind that Live Chat can help increase your revenue by 6% and increase average order value (AOV) by 10%. A Shopify e-commerce study found that consumers who engaged with sales associates over video chat were 70% more likely to make a purchase. Additionally, 80% of businesses said that implementing live chat resulted in increased customer loyalty, sales and revenue. (Source)
Chatbots require more data and are therefore often a heavier lift for your website. Typically their size is 15MB+. The other downside to a bot is obviously unhelpful bot answers. 47.5% of US internet users feel the greatest challenge with chatbots is they provide too many unhelpful responses. (Source: Statista)
Live Chat is usually less cumbersome to implement on your website. Take Optimy.ai. It only requires 5 lines of code to run on your website. This is a simple website addition that is only 2.5MB and therefore doesn’t significantly slow down your site compared to our competitors, many of whom are 10MB or above. Even compared to our live chat competitors Optimy is unmatched.
Now that you can identify what is slowing down your site, you can figure out how to solve the issue. Want to learn more about Optimy? Book a demo today.