The most significant change you can make to your page, performance-wise, is setting it up for caching. And this is what is going to keep your readers around. People can be impatient, and even if you have the most beautiful channel in the world, your readers are going to ditch it if they have to spend several minutes waiting for it to finish updating. That is valuable time they could be spending elsewhere.

Channels often neglect caching. Partly because it is a little esoteric, and partly because it involves a little excursion into the world of servers. But in the long run, it is worth it.