Semalt: The Effect Of Page Speed On SEO
There are quite a lot of factors that are considered during the launching and designing of successful websites, but page speed is often overlooked. This is a terrible error.
Page speed is now more crucial than ever and has long been a significant ranking factor. Every SEO professional knows the importance of page speed; hence, it is vital that you employ the services of a professional like Semalt if you find it difficult to improve your site's page speed.
In this article, we will learn what page speed is, why it's so important, and how to make your site responsive.
What Is Page Speed?
Page speed is the time it takes for a browser to receive the first batch of information from a server and display it on a specific page.
The speed with which a site loads can impact its overall ranking because pages with longer load times have higher bounce rates and lower average time on page. Longer load times have also been shown to have a negative impact on conversions.
Bounce rates are calculated by the percentage of zero-second single-page sessions divided by the total percentage of website page sessions.
As a result, when a website receives a large number of zero-second page hits, it can be inferred that users don't wait for the site to load sufficiently. This is why paying close attention to page speed optimization is necessary.
Google has a tool called PageSpeed Insights that provides specific instructions on how to speed up a website and how high a site ranks in terms of page performance.
Professional SEOs frequently delay some of the scripts as part of page performance optimization to speed up the loading of the primary content and improve page speed.
Another choice is to hold off on the remaining content until "user interaction." As a result, websites are not required to load animations that are below the fold right away.
Importance Of Page Speed On SEO
Page speed SEO depends on how fast a page loads. The speed of a page is a direct ranking factor in Google's algorithm. Page speed can also affect rankings by increasing the number of people who leave a page and decreasing the time people spend there.
Google puts the needs of its users first, so it doesn't like to rank sites that are hard to use. In terms of page speed, a bad user experience is shown by a user leaving a page after about 3 seconds.
Some website speed optimization metrics, like the LCP and CLS, will affect Google page rank. This means that a fast page will also get more page views. Remember, how well a site works for mobile SEO is very important.
Mobile-first indexing has been the default for all new websites since July 2019, and Google primarily uses the mobile version of a site's content to index and rank it.
How to Tell How Fast a Page Loads
The first part of Google PageSpeed Insights is the lab and field data, which helps measure the different parts of a site.
1. Lab Data Versus Field Data
Field data is performance data gathered from actual page loads that users are experiencing in the wild. The Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) database uses field data to measure how users feel in the real world.
Since data is collected from the last 28 days, don't expect a change in numbers immediately after optimizing for speed.
"Lab data" is performance data collected in a controlled environment with device and network settings that have already been set. Results can be repeated, which can help with debugging by making it easier to find, isolate, and fix performance problems.
2. Core Web Vitals
Core Web Vitals are numbers that show how fast a page loads. Items that don't pass the Core Web Vitals test have a small blue flag icon next to them. These are:
A. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
This is about how to measure how long a page takes to load. It means that the main content of a page, which is usually a block of text or the main image, has loaded correctly and can be seen by users.
B. First Delay on Input (FID)
First Input Delay is when a user interacts with a page for the first time and when the browser can respond to that interaction.
C. Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
Cumulative Layout Shift measures how stable a page's layout looks and how often the layout changes without the user's intention. This can happen when a user clicks the wrong button on a page. This number should be as low as possible.
3. The First Contentful Paint (FCP)
The first image or text that can be seen is called the "First Contentful Paint." It can have text, images, and scalable vector graphics that tell a browser what to do next.
Additionally, Google Lighthouse is a free, open-source tool that can check a page's performance and accessibility. It can determine how fast the page loads and how many people click on it. It lets people look at how fast a page loads and how users interact with a website and see if a site's performance meets certain standards.
Factors That Affect How Well A Website Works
Here are some things to think about when looking at page speed.
1. Your site's theme
The theme controls your website's layout, font, and color scheme. But not every theme is made the same. Some themes are much easier to use than others. They are easier to load because the file size is smaller.
This also means they have fewer bells and whistles like animations or special design patterns than other apps. But if you want the page to load faster, that's a good trade-off.
2. Network efficiency
The network conditions of each user are another thing that can affect how well a site works. Even though this isn't a developer's job, there are still ways to speed up the delivery of web resources.
Slow connections can be fixed with tools like compression, minification, and hosting content with a CDN.
3. Hosting location
How fast or slow pages load can depend on how well a web host works. So, there can be a lot of network latency if the content of a page has to travel a long way to get to where it is needed. Anyone can use free tools that are available online to find out where a website is hosted.
4. Poorly written code
Poor code can cause many problems, from JavaScript errors to HTML markups that don't work. When code isn't optimized well, performance can drop a lot. Clean up your code and eliminate any mistakes and extra lines that don't add anything useful.
5. Too many widgets and plugins
If you use WordPress to run your site, you're almost certainly using plugins and widgets to give your site extra features. What makes WordPress such a powerful platform is its plugins. But it only makes sense to use a few plugins because they slow down your website when they are too many.
Every plugin you install adds a little bit of code to your page, making it heavier than it should be. Plugins that aren't optimized can also slow down a website in a big way.
6. Redirects
Every website has redirects, and there's nothing wrong with them. But remember that redirects may slow down the speed at which your page loads if it's not set up correctly. Most of the time, they won't slow you down very much, but they will in the case of redirect chains.
You can avoid making too many redirects by putting links as close as possible to the final destination, making your website load faster.
7. Pictures and movies
A slow-loading page can be caused by images that are too big. They make up a big part of the weight of your page (in kilobytes or megabytes). If your page's header image is large and not optimized, your LCP score in Core Web Vitals might be low.
That's because LCP measures how long it takes for the most significant piece of content to show up on the screen, and your big image will take time to load. Image SEO is a big part of making your site load faster.
8. Large file size
This could consist of many different files, including your HTML file, CSS, and, most importantly, JavaScript. Your page speed will be affected by how many bytes and kilobytes you can cut out of these files.
Modern sites also use JavaScript to make them move and change. It is what makes it possible for websites to have flashy, cool animations and transitions. But JavaScript is also heavy, and putting too much on a page makes it slow and hard to load.
You might have a low FID score in Core Web Vitals because it takes longer to process JavaScript files on mobile devices, which don't have as much processing power as desktop computers.
How to Make a Page Load Faster
There are many ways to speed up a page. Go through this list to get started.
- Do an A/B test all the time.
- Fix how the Internet routes traffic.
- Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN).
- Change how many ads are on a page and how good they are.
- Use browser add-ons that include requests to change the network, like JavaScript.
- Use a service like the WP Rocket Plugin for WordPress to optimize your pages.
- Check how well a website works by seeing how fast pages load on different devices.
- Limit plugins and extra page elements.
- Use browser add-ons that include requests to change the network, like JavaScript.
- Use virus protection software.
- Pick a good web host.
- Add a trailing slash at the end of the web address (URL).
- Cut down on page redirects.
Conclusion
SEO is constantly changing, so it is important to keep sites running quickly. Check your sites often for errors and keep up with the latest news since the rules change frequently and must be checked often.
Page speed is becoming more and more critical for SEO, so take all the steps you need to ensure your page ranks well and stays helpful to users.
Should you encounter any difficulties, you can contact an SEO company like Semalt to help your site have improved page speed. Semalt renders page speed optimization services to businesses that will help your site rank higher.
Give us a call today!