How complicated would it be to optimize our current site for the Safari browser?
-
Hi all! Okay, here's the scoop. 33% of our site visitors use Safari. 18% of our visitors are on either an iPad or iPhone. According to Google Analytics, our average page load time for visitors using Safari is 411% higher than our site average of 3.8 second. So yes, average page load time pages loading in Safari is over 20 seconds...totally unacceptable, especially considering the large percentage of traffic using it.
While I understand that there are some parameters beyond our control, it is in our own best interest to try to optimize our site for Safari. We've got to do better than 20 seconds. As you might have guessed, it's also killing conversation rates on visits from that browser. While every other browser posted double-digit improvements in conversion rates over the last several months, the conversion rate for Safari visitors is down 36%...translating into 10's of thousands in lost revenue.
Question for anyone out there gifted in Web design and particular Web Dev....Do you think that it's possible/reasonable to attempt to "fix" our current site, which sits on an ancient platform with ancient code, or is this just not realistic? Would a complete redesign/replatform be the more realistic (and financially sound) way to go?
Any insights, experiences and recommendations would be greatly appreciated. If you're someone interested in spec'-ing out the project and giving us a cost estimate please private message me. Thanks so much!
-
Thank you all so very very much. Matt, I am going to drop you a PM as you suggested. Paul, wow...thank you for sharing your insights here. I am sure this is extremely helpful information not just for me, but for many other folks here who've observed some of the same things on their sites. Yes, I agree that the conversion issue could very well be a mobile optimization problem and not a Safari problem as we have spent very little to no time optimizing our mobile site. Given the traffic levels coming in via that channel, it's probably time to get crackin'!
You guys are awesome!
-
Sorry Dana - totally missed your mention about conversions being down. In that case you'll want to do some head-to-head testing with webpagetest.org.
The other thing to consider is that over half your Safari traffic is from mobile, Is it possible there's a mobile-optimisation problem and not a Safari problem? (How do the other mobile browsers perform in comparison?)
And the last suggestion I just thought of: Pingdom now offers Real User Monitoring (RUM) that purports to also be able to track the page speed of Safari users. (It uses it's own javascript module you add to your pages.) Given that this comes free for 1 site even with their free plan, seems like it would be an essential step toward getting a better handle on just where and how big the issue actually is.
P.
-
Dana, the good news here is that you have probably been worrying for nothing.
The function GA uses for tracking page timing is simply not included in Safari or Safari for iOS (phone/iPads). So those Safari figures you are seeing are completely anomalous and totally unreliable.
Here's the chart that shows which browsers have the capability to report their page speed in Analytics.
http://caniuse.com/nav-timing
As you'll notice, both desktop and mobile versions of Safari are no-go.The bad news is, just because the GA timings are worthless doesn't prove definitively you don't have any Safari issues. By far the best way to assess the situation is to analyse whether Safari-based visitors behave significantly differently on-site. Is their bounce rate higher? Time on site or conversions substantially lower? If no substantial difference compared to other browsers, you don't have an issue. (Usually this is the case - a site that performs in Chrome and Firefox almost always performs about the same in Safari, in my experience)
The one option you do have to get actual speed tests is to use webpagetest.org and select a testing location that offers the Safari browser as one of the options. Then you'll want to test multiple pages that represent the different primary templates and sections of your site. Do note though that even this will be using Safari on Windows, which was capped at version 5 back in 2012. So you can expect that current versions of Safari, especially native Mac apps, are likely faster.
Hope that sets your mind at ease, and gives you some next steps to further investigate alternative methods!
Paul
P.S When using GA page speed results, do note that by default Analytics only gathers data on 1% of page views. You need to customise your GA site snippet to push that level higher. This is critical for most sites because unless they have huge traffic volume, a 1% sample rate will be wildly inaccurate. The code snippet to add is
_gaq.push(['_setSiteSpeedSampleRate',100]);
and it has to go before the call to _trackPageview. By setting the sample rate to 100 as above, GA will try to track speed of all pageviews. It won't succeed of course, but you'll have far more reliable data. (GA will record speed data for a max of 10K hits per day)
-
Hi Dana,
I have done lots of work on site speed (a little obsessed with it but I have seen great results!) and I have made changes to a lot of sites that have massively improved load time and I have checked a couple and they are loading as quickly in Safari as the other browsers. I would be happy to give you some advice on possible quick fixes that you could make relatively easily and they will speed your site up significantly if you haven't already implemented them.
Drop me a pm with your site address and what server setup you are on Apache or IIS. I will have a look and see if there is any changes that may help
-
Hey Dana,
I've had this problem with Safari being slower as well. In fact, I just checked a handful of sites in Google Analytics and Safari is almost consistently the slowest browser. One question to look into is whether or not mobile traffic on Safari is slow. For the sites I'm looking at and for the sites I've worked on in the past, the culprit is usually Safari's desktop browser. Phones are usually within normal loading parameters (by phone standards).
Unfortunately, in most cases, the sluggish performance on Safari is due to Safari's DNS prefetching. Generally, prefetching does the opposite, but apparently can slow you down in Safari. You can read more about that here. http://macs.about.com/od/MacTroubleshootingTips/qt/Troubleshooting-Safari-Slow-Page-Loads-Caused-By-Dns-Prefetching.htm and this is another good one http://computers.tutsplus.com/tutorials/how-to-fix-slow-and-non-loading-webpages-in-safari--mac-51338 (Lots more if you Google Safari prefetching.)
I do think it is worth it to try to fix it. Here's what I would do, if I were you. Feel free to PM me if you want more help...
The way you fix this is on the client's machine, at least according to those articles (and others I've found while Google'ing around just now). However, you can try these steps out on your computer (if you've got a Mac) and see if you have an improved performance in Safari. It shouldn't take that long to test, and is probably worth it given the huge loss you are seeing due to this issue.
The next question is, well, how do I do this for everybody? The answer is to ask your visitors to use Chrome! No, seriously, one that worked for me in the past, was to detect the Safari user agent and load a slightly different version of the page that required fewer requests, meaning there will be less for Safari to prefetch. For instance, you might get rid of JavaScript, images, etc. that isn't essential. Obviously, keep the core content so that the pages are basically the same (kind of like you would for mobile detection).
This is obviously much more complicated to setup as it requires adjustments to the design as well as the code structure. But, generally simpler than trying to redo your entire website.
Before you make any such changes, it might be worth running a simple test on a key landing page that gets a lot of visits from Safari. Remove what elements you can for all user agents and see if this changes anything substantially with the site speed in Safari.
I hope that helps. Thanks,
Matthew
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Conversion Rate Benchmarking and Optimization
Hey everyone! I run the marketing for an ecommerce marketplace and we're doing good on the SEO front of things, with 60%+ of our traffic coming in via search and we're ranking for some competitive keywords. I'm really curious about the conversion rate though. Despite intensive googling, I've not been able to find a rough benchmark for conversion rates. Our conversion rate is about 1.2%, increasing as we continue to do more optimization work with regards to the site's usability. While we track other forms of conversions, the 1.2% conversion rate is for bookings through the site, which is our main source of revenue. Does anyone have a reference guide for conversion rates, particularly for ecommerce marketplaces? I'd like to know if we're doing ok or really bad, and also to take reference from other similar sites to improve our conversion. Thanks!!
Conversion Rate Optimization | | NgEF0 -
Are website optimization and conversion rate optimization roughly the same thing?
This is mostly a semantics question, but I also want to check that I have a basic understanding of the two concepts. Are the two terms more or less interchangeable or are there any crucial differences? I always thought of website optimization as the complementary partner to SEO. While the ultimate goal of SEO is getting people TO your website, website optimization is focused on refining your website so that those people STAY on your website. When I think of conversion rate optimization, I'd imagine that's pretty much the same goal. Refining a website so that more people stay and ultimately convert (buy something, subscribe to a newsletter, etc). Is my understanding of one (or both) of them flawed, or is it six of one, half a dozen of the other? Thanks!
Conversion Rate Optimization | | BrianAlpert780 -
Site Customisation - Urgent Input Required!
Hello, We are currently setting up a way of customising a client's site based on PPC campaign. I am wondering whether or not there are any SEO issues we need to be aware of. Overview Our client’s site, as accessed by a user through Google Organic, will be the complete site; the same site Googlebot will see. The site, as accessed by a user through a particular Google Adwords campaign, will return a customised version of the site. How the Customisation is Happening The Adwords campaign will be set up to target a particular region, using Adwords’ built-in location targeting. Its ads will link to pages on the regular site, but each URL will be appended with a URL parameter that will trigger the customisation. A cookie will also be planted in these users’ browsers to ensure that the customisation continues as the user browses from page to page on the site. The majority of the content will be the same but the site will promote a particular store of the client, one local to the searcher. Other stores won’t be promoted on this customised version of the site. SEO Thoughts All pages will have canonical tags on them referencing the original, unmodified version of the page. I personally can’t see any issue with regard to SEO because we are approaching this in the spirit of helping the user. But with launch on the horizon I am starting to worry slightly and would welcome the feedback from anyone else here – are there any SEO issues that may arise from this?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | xerox4320 -
Where I can place a banner/message in my site telling I have a new website?
Where I should place a banner or a message in my old site to tell user that I have a new website? Thanks in advance!
Conversion Rate Optimization | | esiow20130 -
Spam to site with GMail addresses - any way to resolve.
We are noticing more and more spam around: Customer Name: Sylvia Abernathy Customer Email: sylviaa386@gmail.com Customer Phone Number: Service Type Requested: Please Choose From List Service description: We found your weblisting on one of the back pages of Google. Wouldn’t you rather be up front? Our experts in Search Engine Optimization can help you become more visible and more productive. A quick email will get you details. This is from a site around auto and truck service and is an actual cut and paste. My question is twofold: Is there a way to report individual Gmail addresses to Google as purveyors of spam and beyond a capcha, is there any other work around? This is form to schedule a service appt. so they are not emailing to an info@etc.com type address. It is a contact form. Thanks
Conversion Rate Optimization | | RobertFisher0 -
14,000+ links a to one site - is this a problem?
First, thanks to those who have helped me before. Second, according to Google Webmaster there are about 14,765 external links to my site. According to Open Site Explorer I have 22. So a couple of questions: 1. Why such a discrepancy? 2. Of the 14,765 links shown in Google Webmaster 14,665 are all from one place and all link to my home page. The site is interiordesignproductfinder.com. In August of this year I bought a sponsorship there. There are several of these sponsors so which show up on a rotating basis. Will having 14,765 links all of a sudden showing up be grounds for some type of a Google downgrade? Why are there 14, 765 links instead of just one. Is a new link created every time our sponsorship rotates to the page? Another thing, in the past couple of months our conversions have dropped significantly. we average about 180 visits a day with a 50% bounce rate. Is there anything obvious thatt might have caused this drop? Thanks for any insights. Don www.uniquegiftsanddecor.com
Conversion Rate Optimization | | uniquegifts-2778790 -
Optimizing meta descriptions for click through
Hey guys! I'm curious if anyone knows of any research or has any experience with using the word "buy" vs "shop for" as a call to action in meta descriptions, and what has better click through rates? A quick search of Google trends shows that they're both pretty close in terms of search, but im curious as to the psycological reaction that people have to those terms and what one they respond to better. I look forward to your response. Thanks!
Conversion Rate Optimization | | markwrightseo0