How To Improve Website Page Speed For SEO
Website Page Speed Optimization For SEO
We all know that page speed is important. A slow website can frustrate users and lead to higher bounce rates. But did you know that page speed is also a major ranking factor for SEO?
In today’s digital world, website speed is more important than ever. A slow website can negatively affect your business in a number of ways, including your search engine ranking. In this blog post, we’ll discuss why page speed matters for SEO and how you can improve it.
Table of Contents
What is Page Speed Optimization ?
In simple words ” Page Speed Optimization means improving the loading time of web pages“. It is a process of delivering as light pages as possible without compromising on the quality or the quantity of information it possesses for the users. This can include optimizing images, compressing code, reducing redirects and more.
Difference between Page Speed and Site Speed
What is Page Speed?
Page speed is the amount of time it takes for a web page to load or how long a user would wait to consume an individual page.
What is Site Speed?
Site speed is the amount of time taken by the entire website to load. It is the average of pages on a website
What is a Good Page Speed ?
How do you know if your page has a good page speed or not?
Google Lighthouse is a great tool by Google to help SEO experts easily check the performance and the speed of any of your pages. You can even use Google PageInsights which is a more common tool used by SEO experts.
As a rule, any page should load in under three seconds; this is the average expectation of most website visitors. If your webpage happens to take longer than that, it could lead to serious frustration for viewers and thus prompt them to leave without even digesting the content you have put together.
Page Speed: Why It Matters For SEO
Page speed is one of the key factors that can affect your overall SEO performance. If a page takes too long to load, visitors will likely leave before they even read any content on the page, resulting in fewer conversions and potentially reduced rankings for that page.
Search engine algorithms also take into account the loading times of websites when ranking them for relevant keywords. Pages that load faster tend to rank higher than those that take longer to display content, as they are more likely to offer a better experience for visitors.
Another reason why page speed matters for SEO is due to the “crawl budget” of search engines. This is the amount of time allocated by search engine algorithms to crawl and index websites. If a page is taking too long to load, it may have an impact on the time allotted for other pages to be crawled as well.
Finally, faster loading times can also help reduce bounce rate, which is important for improving your overall rankings in search engine results. When visitors find a website that takes forever to load, they will most likely click away from the page altogether. This can have a negative impact on your website’s overall SEO performance.
Overall, page speed is an important factor for optimizing websites for search engine rankings. It is essential that webmasters take into account the loading times of their pages and find ways to reduce them in order to ensure that their website is optimized for SEO.
Want To Improve Your Page Speed ?
Effect of Page Speed on Bounce Rate
Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who leave your website after viewing only one page. A high bounce rate indicates that users are not finding what they are looking for on your site and are quickly leaving in search of better options.
So, page speed is indirectly proportional to bounce rate. If one increases the other decreases. Due to this reason, there is a high bounce rate if the speed of the page is slow.
When pages take too long to load, users become impatient and leave before they even have a chance to explore your content. In fact, research has shown that a 1-second delay in page loading can lead to a 7% reduction in conversions.
Therefore, it’s clear that improving your page speed is essential if you want to keep people engaged with your website.
The Effect of Page Speed on Conversion Rate
Conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who take the desired action on your website, such as signing up for a newsletter or buying a product. A high conversion rate indicates that users are finding what they are looking for on your site and are taking the desired action.
The faster the page speed the more the conversion rate. So, we can say that page speed and conversion rate a directly proportional to each other.
What does Google say About Page Speed ?
Google has stated multiple times that page speed is a ranking factor. In 2010, they included page speed in their ranking algorithm for the first time. Then in 2018, they announced that they would be using mobile page speed as a ranking factor for mobile searches.
And finally, in 2019 they announced that they would be rolling out a new Speed Update which would use page speed as a ranking factor for all searches.
Source: https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/lets-make-web-faster.html
So it’s clear that page speed matters for SEO. But why? Google has said that they want to provide its users with the best possible experience. A fast website will provide a better user experience than a slow website.
And if Google is favoriting websites with good user experiences, that means those websites are more likely to rank higher in the search results.
Here is a link to a video to help you know how page speed is an important SEO factor
Practically Speaking
Think about it this way, if you are a user who wishes to have any of its queries resolved and you click on a website that just would keep loading to appear. How would you feel? Probably frustrated.
A slower landing page website would likely frustrate the user and make them less likely to stay on the page or explore the website further. It may also create a negative perception of the website and company, as a slow-loading page can be seen as unprofessional or unreliable.
In today’s fast-paced digital world, a sluggish landing page can turn potential customers away and harm the website’s overall traffic and success. Additionally, a slow landing page may also indicate technical issues that could affect the functionality and usability of the rest of the website.
Overall, it is important for websites to prioritize speed and efficiency in order for users to have a positive experience.
10 Common Reasons Why You Have Poor Page Speed
- Heavy images
- Too many plugins
- Excessive code
- Poor Hosting
- Outdated software/plugins/themes
- Cache errors
- Third-party scripts
- Size of the page
- Web Design
- Congested Server
Page Speed Improvements
10 Ways to improve your page speed:
- Optimize images for faster loading.
By optimizing your images, you can reduce their size without sacrificing quality. This will help to dramatically improve the loading speed of your website.
Heavy images or multimedia files can negatively affect the speed of the page. This is because they take longer to load, which can slow down the entire website. Additionally, large images or multimedia files can take up a lot of storage space, leading to reduced page performance.
Images are often the largest files on a web page, so reducing their file size can have a big impact on your page speed. The best way to avoid this situation is to optimize your images or files before uploading.
This can involve reducing their file size, compressing them to make them smaller without compromising on quality or using a better image format such as WebP that has smaller file sizes. You can use image compression tools like TinyPNG or Kraken.io.
2. Remove un-used plugins & avoid using too many plugins, especially the “heavy” ones
Plugins and add-ons can be very useful, however, they can also cause your website to load slowly. Try to limit the number of plugins that you are using and make sure that you keep them updated.
When it comes to page speed, too many plugins can be a major culprit. This is because plugins add extra code to the website, which can slow down the page. Additionally, plugins can conflict with each other, which can also slow down the page.
Using unnecessary plugins and slowing the speed of your page is just something you would not wish. So, avoid using plugins that are of no use to you. You can also optimize your plugins for page speed.
3. Compress and minify code
Cutting down on unnecessary code can significantly decrease page load times. Use an online tool to compress and minify your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files.
Excessive code on the page can slow down the page speed. This is because code takes up bandwidth and processing time, which can slow down the page.
This means removing unnecessary characters like whitespace, comments, and line breaks from your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files. Just minify or optimize your CSS and JavaScript files. This will reduce the file size and help your pages load faster.
4. Choose a faster hosting service
The quality and speed of your hosting service can have a huge impact on the speed of your website. It is worth investing in a reliable hosting provider with good reviews.
If you find that your website is loading slowly, it could be time to switch to a faster server which has more capacity and better performance. Server response time is the amount of time it takes for a web server to respond to a request from a browser. The faster this happens, the quicker your website will load.
Poor hosting can also cause a slow website which in turn could lead to slow page speed. This is because low-performing web hosting providers often have limited bandwidth and storage space, which can affect the speed of the website.
Always choose a good hosting provider for your website.
5. Keep your website up to date
Outdated software, themes, and plugins can also cause a slow website. This is because outdated software and plugins may not be optimized for page speed.
Additionally, they may have security vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers. You can easily avoid this problem by just keeping software, themes, and plugins up-to-date.
Making sure that your website is regularly updated with the latest software and content can help to keep it running smoothly and quickly.
6. Leverage Browser Caching
Another way to improve page speed is by enabling browser caching. This will store certain elements on a user’s computer so they don’t have to be downloaded each time they access the page.
This includes static resources such as images, JavaScript and CSS files. Caching these elements, drastically improves loading times for returning visitors. It also lessens the workload on servers so your site can function faster and smoother.
Do You Need Help In Page Speed Optimization?
7. Avoid Third-party Scripts
Third-party scripts are elements on a website that are not hosted by the website owner. This includes things like social media widgets, advertising scripts, and analytics scripts.
These scripts can often slow down the loading of the page. This is because they can slow down the loading of the page, which can frustrate users and cause them to leave the page. Additionally, third-party scripts can conflict with each other, which can also slow down the loading of the page.
Therefore, minimizing and optimizating these third-party scripts can help your page’s performance.
8. Size of the page – Minimize HTTP Requests
One of the best ways to improve page speed is to minimize HTTP requests. This can be done by reducing the number of files that are requested when the page loads.
One way to do this is to combine multiple files into one file. This can be done by using a compression tool like Gzip or Deflate. Additionally, you can use a tool like sprites to combine multiple images into one file.
The larger the size of the page, the more data needs to be loaded, which can slow down the loading of the page. Additionally, large pages can take up a lot of storage space, which can cause the website to run slowly.
9. Use a CDN
Using a CDN (Content Delivery Network) can help improve your page speed. A CDN is a network of servers that deliver content to users based on their geographic location. By using a CDN, you can ensure that users around the world receive content quickly and efficiently.
If you do not use a CDN (Content Delivery Network), your website will be slower due to the distance between the user and your server. Additionally, without a CDN, your website will be more vulnerable to attacks as well as DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks.
10. Reduce redirects
Redirects are an important part of any website but if there are too many it can slow down page loading times. Try to reduce the number of redirects that you have on your website as much as possible.
By using these techniques to optimize the speed of your website, you can make sure that your website is performing at its best and helping your business succeed.
Conclusion
Page speed is an important metric for SEO because it impacts the user experience. By taking these steps, you can improve your SEO ranking and ensure that users have a positive experience on your website.
With minor work such as optimizing images, minifying CSS and JavaScript files, using CDN, etc, your page would improve its speed which helps the users to really see the information you’re providing them.
It is important for both users and search engines. A fast website will provide a better user experience and is more likely to rank higher in the search results. By improving your website’s page speed, you’ll be able to provide a better experience for both users and search engines.
Need help to optimize your website page speed performance?
Veronica Lim
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