SEO

How Website Speed Affects Your SEO Rankings?

For a long time, we have understood Website Speed Affects in reference to any page that shows loadingโ€ฆ loadingโ€ฆ loadingโ€ฆ when you are trying to reach it or a page that can load faster.

However, that’s not just the case. Pagespeed is way far from that. It refers to how fast a page can load. Not only for a user but for the bot as well.

It depends upon so many factors. As itself, it is a metric. Factors such as server response time, content delivery network, loading of images, javascript on the page, etc. These factors are from the website’s end. However, there may be some reasons like poor internet connection or an old device resulting in slow page loading.

What matters the most for Google and most of the users are factors from the website’s end.

Google Focuses On Your Website’s Pagespeed

Then was a time when only content was the king. However, today the user experience is everything. Either it is a content, website, UX.UI, Website Speed Affects, or any other thing.

Google will value your content if it is useful for the user. Google will value your site if it is according to the users’ demand. Google will value your design and development if it is user-friendly. For Google, the user comes first. That is the reason Google has quickly shifted its gears from mobile-friendly to mobile-first designs.

Similarly, Google focuses on your website page speed, and it is ultimately one of the biggest SEO factors. Google has clearly stated that page speed is a landing page factor, whether you are optimizing your site organically or through Google Ads.

This is not a new metric that Google has involved as a search factor. From 2010, page speed is counted as a search factor for desktop searches. And from 2018, it is now also considered for mobile searches.

Pagespeed And The Users

Google says that a user has more potential to move away from your website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. Or else it will increase your website’s bounce rate.

Fine, that’s a statement by Google. But what does it matter to SEO? It does. We need to understand this. Google shows your website on the top only when it fulfills all the metrics that a user wants.

And, it is supernatural that a user would love to see or stick to a website whose page speed is fast. We are even more likely to visit a website with a better loading speed rather than a slower website.

The Importance Of Pagespeed For Rankings

So, it is very clear that page speed is a ranking factor, without any doubt. But how much does it contribute to your ranking? This is still a question which is not been answered yet. Let me answer this for you.

As Martin Splitt – A Developer from Google said that Website Speed Affects is an SEO factor, but the content has its own value. He stated, “If you have bad content, but you’re the fastest website out there, then that won’t help you.”

It simply means that page speed has a lesser value when it comes to SEO factors as compared to content.

However, Google has recently announced that they are working on improving the way they consider user experience as a search factor. It is obvious that user experience will get more value, and similarly, page speed will have more value being an SEO factor.

Apart from all that, Google shows your page speed with a very specific tool for this purpose.

Let’s look at that tool.

Google PageSpeed Insights

It is basically a calculator which gives you a score of your website’s loading speed based on different factors.

Google not only shows the score but also gives you suggestions to improve these factors.

There in the highlighted bar, you can select which factor you want to improve Website Speed Affects, and Google will provide you with relevant suggestions.

Apart from that, it can provide you with a Lighthouse Treemap with the percentage of size all the scripts contain on your site. It can help you improve or remove useless scripts.

Your website’s speed score depends upon the data analyzed by Lighthouse.

So, Google provides you with a great platform to analyze and improve your PageSpeed. This shows the significance of PageSpeed in Google’s Ranking Algorithm and how important it is for you and your site.

Impacts Of PageSpeed On Crawling Bots

Without any doubt, page speed matters a lot when it comes to focusing on any user. And Google also includes that into their search ranking algorithms. But how does it actually work? Or does it have any other side?

Yes definitely! Google has different bots who can analyze the performance, page speed of your website. They can understand what sort of content is written on your site. These are called crawling bots.

So, does page speed impact the bots? Yes, it does.

Just like we visit any website, bots do the same. However, intentions are different. When a bot enters a website, it is called crawling. They check for up-gradation of content, UX/UI, coding, and, of course, your page speed. Crawling is also necessary in order to get your website and content indexed on Google.

However, these bots can not visit all the billions of websites daily. SO, they set routines and preferences. It is observed that websites having better page speed have a higher preference and have a greater number of crawl requests.

So, if you want your website in the preference list, it should have a higher page speed. It will ultimately impact better search rankings.

This is how your website’s page speed impacts SEO. Now, let’s quickly discuss some tips to increase your page speed.

How To Improve PageSpeed

Pagespeed depends more or less on your codes, size of images, and your server. In order to increase it, you need to follow the tips below.

Enabling Compression

You need to compress the size of your CSS, JavaScript, and HTML files sizing larger than 150 bytes. You can use Gzip software for the compression of such files. Remember, do not compress images with Gzip, or it will destroy the quality of images.

Minify Codes

You should reduce the size of your codes and minify them. Exclude extra spaces and characters. As suggested by Google, use UglifyJS and CSSNano.

Reducing Redirects and HTTP Requests

The higher number of HTTP requests on your webpage results in slow loading. Try to remove extra files that are being called on your webpage. Look for hidden files and remove them.

Utilize Browser Cache

Google suggests that we should leverage the browser’s cache. A browser can store a lot of information like stylesheets, images, and JavaScript. So, if a user revisits your site or reloads a page, browsers can show the stored data, which will improve your page’s loading time.

Your Server Response Time

It is very important that you should choose a better server or host while creating your website. It impacts your website’s page speed. The optimal server response time is about 200 milliseconds. You need to meet this.

Along with these tips, you should also work on reducing the size of images on your website. Use web extension for the images. Use CDN (content distribution network). These are all factors that can improve your page speed and will help you rank better.

Melissa Calvert

Melissa Calvert is a devoted Lifestyle Counselor at Dissertation Assistance UK. She is also a front end developer. She aims to educate students as great professionals. Melissa is a regular reader of SEO related articles. She is also fond of football and loves to keep herself fit.

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