dorset seo

Why Google uses website speed as a major ranking factor.

You might not know this but the speed of your websites mobile version is a major part of how Google deems your site rank worthy. The free organic listing your site has is greatly affected by the user experience speed wise. Google is ever changing and the algorithm by which it ranks websites is ever changing too.  Google now plays a big emphasis on the user experience om your website so if it’s not up to standard you will find your website ranking lower then you might like.

You might be thinking to yourself “but my speed is fine when I access my site on my mobile”. This may be true but chances are you will have broadband which can cope and help the site load in an acceptable time. Google however knows not everyone has broadband, some people are limited to slower speeds and Google takes this into consideration. So basically your site must be usable even to people with slow broadband.

You only have so many seconds to capture the attention of your site visitor, if your site takes 3 seconds to load then this will severely hamper this.  More then half of visits are abandoned if a site takes longer then 3 seconds to load on a mobile device.  Free tools such as Googles site speed test here: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/  give you an indication and score out of 100 of your site speed.

There are many factors that effect speed of a website, some examples can be too much JavaScript, pages not using caching, image heavy pages and slow website hosting. All these can be factors and should be included in any decent SEO strategy. An optimized website means a positive user experience which in turn leads to an action being more likely performed, be it complete a form, send an email or purchase online.

Google will always favour and rank the faster websites at the top of the free organic rankings now which is why you should pay attention to what’s going on behind the scenes of your website. Your hosting company will probably know about this as well so you can always reach out to them for advice.  There are also various tools and free reports available online that can show you exactly where your website is slow and what needs amending and improving.  Don’t forget to always re-check your site on Googles own speed test in the link above to see if your site speed has increased in Googles eyes.

If you’re an avid user of analytics to monitor your sites traffic you should pay attention to the stats for bounce rates. This is the action where people visit and leave your site without performing any action even a click. If you have a high bounce rate this could be an indication of a slow loading website. Whilst this article is biased towards mobile website versions it’s also highly applicable to desktop PC websites as well.  Feel free to contact us if you are unsure or have any questions on testing site speed and improving matters.

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