By Dave Schneider, Bootstrap Bay
The game of SEO is a game that is constantly evolving. Search engines such as Google or Bing are always being upgraded, enhanced, and improved to better determine what content should be put in front of visitors’ eyes.
To make the content on the internet more relevant and valuable, search engines rely on many algorithms and factors. And all of these, combined together, make the lives of SEO experts a bit difficult.
If you would like to learn how your website and its performance impact your search engine optimization efforts, keep reading. Below you will find some interesting information that you’ll be able to use from now on when thinking about your SEO strategy.
How Does Your Website’s Performance Affect SEO?
There is no doubt that your website’s page speed is one of the most important factors.
Your website may have a well-designed page with a message that’s easy to understand for your audience, but if that audience can’t get there in a reasonable time (2 seconds or less), then your website is going to be abandoned before they see anything, or complete any valuable action.
If you have any problems regarding page load or web performance issues, you need to address them as soon as possible if you want to save your website’s search engine ranking. And if you don’t have enough expertise to do that, you should talk to professionals.
In order to truly boost your website’s performance (in terms of SEO), it would be best to hire a third-party organization specialized in SEO hosting services like SEO Host. Their features like dedicated IPs, private nameservers, and SEO-friendly strategy are crucial if you want to succeed in the long run.
Website Performance And SEO
Numerous studies have shown that the longer your website takes to load, the fewer conversions your business will make through its primary touchpoint, which is your website.
So, it doesn’t matter if you are an eCommerce business selling products, a business looking to collect subscribers, or an organization trying to share valuable information, long page load times are a significant consideration for the customer experience.
You need to bear in mind that visitors are not going to spend their limited attention waiting on your website to load if a smoother user journey can be experienced on your competitor’s website.
Website Performance On Different Devices
Your website’s performance should be a priority across all devices, not just on desktop devices.
That is why many web development businesses choose to take on a mobile-first approach since they realize how the majority of their web client’s audience is mobile users. There is no way that you can afford slow loading times of your website on mobile devices.
Users used to be less demanding when it came to mobile experiences back in the day. However, slow page loading speeds are not tolerated anymore. People don’t like them and algorithms hate them too.
Just think about it, would you wait on a certain website to load for more than 3 seconds? Probably not. So, why should someone else wait on your website to load for more than 3 seconds?
Google And Your Website’s Performance
We have established that a website recording slow loading times also records low conversion rates. However, a website that is underperforming is also destroying its SEO performance.
Google is paying a lot of attention to load times of web pages as another important factor to determine search ranking.
For instance, Moz, an authority in the world of SEO, states that a slow page speed means that search engines can crawl fewer pages using their allocated crawl budget. This, in turn, negatively affects the indexation.
What Is A Decent Page Speed?
No one can tell you the exact number, but the ideal web page speed is anywhere around 3 seconds. To be precise, if your website can load in three seconds or less, you are fine.
The key is that when it comes to page speed, your goal needs to include making your website as fast as it can be with all of its pages.
Keep in mind that it can also be a competitive advantage to have a fast website since you can take customers away from rivals with slow websites. When visitors bounce off their site, they’ll be happy to find yours.
How Can You Improve The Website Speed And Responsiveness?
Many of the methods you may need to take advantage of can only be executed by SEO experts or web developers.
There are, however, some things you can do on your own:
- Reduce the number of redirects.
- Reduce image size.
- Get rid of flash format content.
- Clean up code.
Final Words
Now that you are familiar with the most important factors that affect your website’s performance and SEO efforts, it is time to act and fix what needs to be fixed.
For a start, focus on speeding up the website and cleaning the code. Once you are done with that and other fundamentals, bring in an expert to further refine your business’s website.
Remember, you also have to be patient. The results will be there, but they will not come over the course of one night.
