Page speed refers to the amount of time it takes for your website’s content to appear in front of your users. With this definition in mind, you can see that this will affect your users’ experience. When your website has a slow load time people are going to leave and this will harm your SEO. Not only will this result in fewer page views but it’ll also result in poor conversion rates. This is why you need to pay attention to it.
Website Speed in the Mobile Era
Today, page speed is a lot more important than in the past, especially on mobile. While in 2008 when SEO was first becoming popular only about 20% used their smartphone to go online, that figure climbed to 72% in 2018.
Google is paying attention to the fact that we live in the mobile era. This is why they’ve been rolling out major updates regarding mobile algorithms. Page load speed became a factor for mobile searches when their Speed Update was introduced. Then their Mobile-First Indexing made it so that when it came to ranking and indexing mobile sites were considered prior to desktop in regards. Clearly, it’s important for your SEO that you have a mobile-friendly website that loads quickly.
What a Good Page Speed Is
Over half of those who use their smartphone to view websites expect them to load in under four seconds. Fortunately, there are numerous tools you can use to check your website’s page load speed. One of the most well-rounded tools available is GT Metrix because it grades your website and scores it based on how your page performs and how it’s structured. Not only will this tell you what your average website speed is but it’ll also give you suggestions on how you can improve it.
How to Improve Your Website Speed
Knowing the importance of website speed is only the beginning. It’s also important for you to take steps to improve upon it.
Invest in Better Web Hosting
You have to store your website somewhere but each of these web hosts (storage spaces) uses a different type of server and is located somewhere different. These factors can impact your website’s page speed which is why when this is too slow you may want to think about changing web hosts. If you do, you should look for one with fast, highly optimized servers. Of course, you should never compromise speed for security as both of these factors are equally important. You may also want to look for servers that are local to help with GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) compliance and eco-friendly. Additionally, for those websites with international traffic, it’s also important to use a Content Delivery Network (CDN) that’ll put your information closer to those countries.
Optimize Your Images
You’ll have a slower page speed if you’re using high-resolution images. Typically this is overkill anyway so there’s no harm in resizing and compressing your images to reduce their file size. While you’ll improve upon your SEO by doing so, you’ll also maintain a high-quality look.
Optimize Your Website’s Design
Some websites’ designs are simply too clunky. There are a lot of ways you can fix this while also improving your website speed and SEO. You can start by having your website developer streamline and optimize the coding (e.g. remove JavaScript) they’re using for developing your website. It’s also important to make sure that your website doesn’t have a lot of redirects and that you leverage browser caching whenever possible.
Pay Attention to GT Metrix
GTmetrix is a tool that checks your website speed so you can see how fast your page speed is. While Google’s Lighthouse data powers this tool, but there are also many benefits to using this tool including:
- Providing deeper analysis, better graphs, and more insights than Google’s PageSpeed tool
- Having over 20 test locations allows you to test your website on a server that’s located in the country you’re targeting so you get more accurate results
- Offering load time information for each website element so you know what you need to work on
- Allowing you to run speed tests on various resolutions that are available on both desktop and mobile
If you find your website’s page speed is interfering with how your SEO is doing contact the Local SEO Company in Tampa Bay, FL for some help today.