Technical SEO: Importance of website speed  

Optimizing a webpage for SEO or search engine optimization goes beyond utilizing keyword, meta tags, content creation and backlinks. A technical SEO aspect called website speed is an often overlooked factor in SEO performance. Slow page load time can negatively affect client interaction, conversion rates in addition to SEO. There are many aspects to having a fast loading site, such as increased page views, increased conversion rates and reduced bounce rates. Bounce rates are the percentage of users who go to your site and immediately leave, instead of browsing additional on site pages.

Let’s have a gander at the potential reasons why your website may not be ranking in the search engine and what you can do to increase your websites organic traffic.

Site speed vs. Page speed

Back in 2010, Google introduced site speed as a factor in search rankings. Due to this being introduced, a factor called page speed was also conceived. Separately and sometimes collectively, these two factors are calculated as ranking factors in Google’s algorithm.

These two factors are oftentimes confused with one another, though they are two different things.

• Page speed refers to the initial page load time, or the amount of time that elapses before display content is shown.
• Site speed is referring to the page speed of many pages viewed on the same site.

Apart from being utilized to determine page rank in search engines, page speed has a major impact on user experience. This is applicable for both mobile and desktop users alike. Each passing second can be a detriment to your site and business. In fact, a two second delay can result in:

• A decrease in page views
• Decreased revenue
• Negative perception from your audience

So what is a good website speed?

We now know that a slower website can affect page rankings. What is a good website speed? In short, two seconds is the longest acceptable time, according to Google. A delay of three second caused an 8% drop in the amount of content read by a user. Based on your site’s speed, the below information will give a comparison against other websites.

• If your site’s load time is less than five seconds, it’s presumably faster than approximately 25% of all websites.
• If it loads in 3 seconds or less, then it is faster than half of all websites.
• If it loads in under one second, it is faster than 90% of all websites.

How do I check my website speed?

There are various sites available to check your website speed. My personal favorite in checking website speed is the Pingdom website speed test. It’s very user friendly and all you need to do is copy and paste your website URL in the search bar. In addition to checking your website speed, Pingdom also give analytical feedback on website content and various suggestions that may improve site performance.

What other factors affect page speed?

Some additional factors that tend to hinder page speed are listed below:

• Heavy script use (JavaScript and CSS)
• Very large file sizes and photos
• Subpar Coding
• Hotlinking
• Using a cut rate web hosting service

Steps you can take to speed up your website

• Removing website plugins and widgets that aren’t being used
• Removing excess JavaScript and script that isn’t being utilized. It acts as dead weight.
• Resizing and optimizing all images to correct file size and formatting
• Compressing and reducing file sizes
• Limit the use of redirects from your page to other pages as these can adversely affect load times.