Site speed indicates the time it takes for your website to load its content. And as it turns out, this measurement has always been a huge factor in determining how your page ranks in search engines.
No wonder that nowadays, most websites are trying to deliver the fastest user experience to their audience. That’s because they know how faster loading times can make them more SEO-friendly.
That said, I want to go over, in detail, the effects that site speed has on SEO and explain why you should speed up your website right now.
Table of Contents
Better Crawling
Web crawling is how search engines index all websites to find related information on specific keywords. And as you might expect, the crawl bot prefers faster and more responsive web pages.
Things like site structure (sitemap), posts, and redirects are going to impact the indexing so you have to make sure everything is in order.
If you don’t have the time to optimize or find the whole process confusing, you can go to websites like PRable that can help you with the task. You can discuss your project with them here to ensure it’s of the highest quality.
Another important thing to pay attention to is your hosting plan or your server. Bigger websites shall require more space and in order to get the most out of the speed optimization, you might need to change it to a more premium package.
Great First Impression
Once visitors click on your website’s URL, they expect it to load right away so they don’t have to wait to enjoy what’s inside.
Since there might be a lot of alternatives that provide the same information as you do, people might end up leaving your site and look somewhere else if you don’t have the speed in the first place.
And you know what? It only takes a split second for visitors to decide whether they want to stay or not. Therefore, you need to make sure that your site loading time is low enough to keep your readers engaged from the very first time they visit.
One way to measure that is using the Google PageSpeed Insights that will inform you the average time it needs a browser to receive the first byte of information from your website. What’s more, the tool can give you a useful recommendation on which aspect you have to optimize.
Higher Ranking
Google always included site speed into its ranking algorithm, meaning that on every search result, all the websites are great, both content and speed-wise. Why should a page rank first if readers need to wait for ages for it to open, anyway?
It even makes more sense when you’re aware that Google also wants visitors to enjoy the best searching experience. In other words, by making your website more responsive, you don’t only delight your readers, but also the search engine.
Higher Traffic, Lower Bounce Rate, and More Conversions
The first thing you’ll notice when you upgrade your site speed is higher traffic. That’s because the search engines assume you can provide a great experience to users and it thinks you’re worthy to be placed at the top, which leads to more viewers.
Another important advantage is a lower bounce rate. Readers won’t easily leave your website when it allows them to navigate through all your pages without waiting.
That’s why I highly recommend that you maintain your overall site speed, not just on a particular page or when people visit it for the first time.
Lastly, site speed can build customers trust and improve your brand image, which will translate into more conversions.
When you can provide a great website for the users, you are also improving your business presence in front of them. Once people realize the quality you provide, it will be easier to convince them to use your product or service.
Happier Customers
There is nothing more stressful for customers than having to experience a long delay on a website. One of the biggest problems is a sluggish user interface.
What if they want to make a quick purchase but somehow, your site doesn’t allow them to do that?
You don’t want to lose that kind of opportunity, do you?
Therefore, it’s imperative to ensure the swiftness of your operations, when people interact with your site. As a matter of fact, customers’ level of satisfaction is hugely impacted by how your site handles their demand.
When you can make them happy, it’s just a matter of time until they’ll come back and enjoy your webpage some more.
Conclusion
Having a speedy website is a very important aspect to maintain good SEO throughout. No matter how related to your picked keywords your site is, visitors will still not like it if they have to face a horribly slow website interface, or even worse when they can’t even open the page.
It just goes to show that site speed and SEO have a very strong relation. Here’s a quick overview of why you need to consider both in order to have a great website.
- Better crawling
- Great first impression
- Higher ranking
- Higher traffic, lower bounce rate, and more conversions
- Happier customers
Looking at how site speed affects SEO so much, there is no reason to allow your website to be slow. Now, get ready to accelerate your website so it can rank first on the search engines!
