Website Speed & SEO: Does Speed Improve Your Rankings?

You can never go a day without finding a new article explaining how significant speed is to site ranking. Does speed increase your website ranking? The answer is yes! The speed of your site influences your SEO in numerous ways, and if you want to know how, keep reading.

It All Starts With Speed

Even before a guest enters your website, the first thing they notice is your speed. Even if you have done everything required in web design and ensured the content you post is relevant, the first impression you give to your visitors is vital. The users will need to load the site first before they see what you have for them. If it takes a long time to load, you will have fewer people being patient, and your potential site visitor will choose your competitor with better speed.

Regardless of the device the guest is using, every second counts, and the more it takes to load your site, the less patient they become, and they will have no better reason to wait for your page to load. During the designing of your website, it is imperative to ensure you select a web designer who understands SEO. Get an expert who understands how SEO works and what it takes to improve ranking. If you want to keep your guests satisfied and improve their experience, work on your site speed.

How Does Site Speed Improve Ranking?

Easier Crawls

If your site loads fast, it makes it easy for Google bots to crawl your page for indexing. Google can index your page without any delays, and once it notices the speed of your site, you are more likely to go on a higher rank.

High Conversion Rate

Remember, you are working against the competitors, and if you cannot offer your users what they need, they will bounce back to your competitor. With a slow site, a user will only hit the back button without a second thought. A delay in two seconds doubles the bounce rate of your site and that means you are losing a large number of guests right at your face.

The disappointed user will tell a friend and a family member and this is how you expand your loss of important guests. The only way to sort this out is to find out how you can increase the speed of your site. A fast-loading site will improve the conversion rate and reduce the bounce rate. Apart from refining the conversion rate, you also get to create brand loyalty.

Improve User Experience

Speed is a crucial aspect when improving the user experience. According to studies, people experience a level of stress with slow-loading sites, the same they do while solving a problem or watching a scary movie. They easily get stressed if they cannot get what they need on time, and if your site has delays, the only thing you will be doing is adding more stress.

There is a specific period that a person waits for a site to load. Once that period elapses, the person moves on to a better thing. Your website must become a lead generation machine by ensuring you increase its speed. Improving user experience will keep your guests happy and more willing to come back. Eventually, Google will note your site and boost your ranking. So, if you want to rank higher, ensure your site attracts responsiveness by increasing its speed before the user abandons it.

How Can You Improve Site Speed?

A few seconds delay can cause a huge negative impact on your ranking and your sales in general. So, you need to know how to sort this out. There are various techniques you can use to improve the speed of our site. Such include;

• Reducing image size. Images play a big role in the way your site loads. Often, if the images are too large, they will always slow down the speed. You can’t remove them and the only solution is reducing their size. Reducing a 20MB size image to a 500KB image will impact the speed of the site by around 65%. So, look for the best tools for reducing image size.
• Reducing redirects. Redirecting the users every time they click on something will always slow down the site. Check the number of requests your website will make and make sure you minimize them.
• Enabling Caches. When a user visits your site, the elements of your website are probably stored in their device. However, you will need to enable caches to ensure they can quickly access your site again without sending an HTTP request.
• Work on the site structure. The design of your website matters a lot. Instead of having too many items cluttered, think of the best way to combine them. You can categorize them based on related factors. The best option will be to get a professional web designer to help you.

Conclusion

Now that you know the importance of site speed in ranking, there is no excuse to stay invisible. Having a fast-loading site improves user experience and makes it easy for Google bots to index your page. It also improves conversion rate and lowers bounce rate. Therefore, if you want to improve the speed of your site, reduce redirects, clean up ode and reduce the size of your images. Once Google identifies your site as great for information, it will rank it the highest on the search engine.