Speed is everything. It’s one of the essential elements of proper web design. It’s also the reason why Google wants to make your website as fast as possible. If your website takes longer than 2 seconds to load, you’re doing something wrong.
It’s time to get serious and improve your page speed for your SEO.
Page Load Speed and SEO
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On the surface, these three types of domains seem very similar. But there are some notable differences between them.
Page load speed is a crucial factor for SEO, especially if you’re trying to rank on the first page of Google’s search results. Google wants to get your website as fast as possible, and studies show that if your website takes over three seconds to load, you could be losing quite a bit of your audience. In fact, with each additional second that a visitor has to wait for your page to load, your conversion rates drop by an average of 4.42%.
Not only does a slow page speed put you at higher risk of losing potential conversions, but it can have a significant impact on your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts.
Does Page Load Speed Affect Your Website's SEO?
Google has been making it clear that speed is a major factor in their algorithm. This is especially true as mobile searches now account for over half of all internet searches. Google uses page speed as a ranking factor because one of its primary goals is to deliver search results that are relevant to a searcher’s inquiry and offer an outstanding user experience (UX). Page speed is one of the UX elements that Google looks at.
When a visitor has to wait for a website to load, it can affect the overall user experience. The longer they wait, the more likely they are to leave the page and click on a different website.
For instance, if page speed decreases from one second to three seconds, the likelihood of a user bounce will increase to 32%. Meanwhile, if page speed goes from one second to six seconds, that bounce probability increases to 106%.
5 Ways to Improve Your Page Speed for SEO
So how can you improve your page speed for SEO? There are a few things that you can do:
1. Reduce HTTP Requests
The first thing you want to do is reduce the number of HTTP requests that your website makes. They can slow down your page’s load speed, and it’s important that you keep your number down. HTTP requests are the requests that your browser sends to the server. You can see them in your web browser’s address bar.
To reduce HTTP requests, you need to make sure that your website is as cacheable as possible. This means that the website can be stored locally on a user’s device, so that it doesn’t have to make an HTTP request to the server upon revising from that particular device.
2. Reduce the Size of Your Website's CSS and JavaScript
It’s important to look at your website’s CSS and JavaScript files and see if they can be minified. Minification can be used to compress the size of the CSS and JavaScript files, reducing them significantly.
These files typically make up a large portion of your page’s load speed. Minification is an integral part of SEO because it can help reduce the number of HTTP requests that your website makes.
3. Utilize Google's PageSpeed Insights Tool
The Google PageSpeed Insights tool is a free tool available to anyone who wants to test their website’s page speed. It can help you diagnose any issues with your page speed and point out ways to improve your page speed.
4. Use a CDN
A content delivery network (CDN) is a type of network used to improve page load speed. CDNs use a large number of servers across the internet to store your website’s content locally.
This means your website can be loaded much faster than if it was hosted on a single server.
5. Optimize Your Website's Images
Your website’s images are also a major factor that will impact your page speed. The more images you have on your website, the longer it will take to load. You want to make sure that your images are optimized.
There are a few different ways to optimize your images. One of the most popular ways is to use responsive images, which can automatically adjust their size to fit any screen size they are viewed on.
Another way to optimize your images is to use the GZIP (gzip) compression format. This can help reduce the size of your images and can help your website load faster.
"Let me help improve your page speed while regularly maintaining your website."
Improve Your Page Speed for SEO with Proper Website Maintenance
The best way to improve your page speed is to make sure that you are regularly maintaining your website. Performing regular maintenance helps prevent issues that could impact your page speed.
If website maintenance seems a tad intimidating, then leave it to me. With over 18 years of experience developing and maintaining websites, I know what it takes to keep your site up and running.
Have questions? Contact me today for all the answers!
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