You Need to Consider Your Site’s Loading Speed in 2015
During the initial days of Google’s algorithm update roll-out, the search engine targeted on websites that possess spammy back-links, domain ownership, keyword stuffing, and poor-quality content. But after the rising surge of mobile devices and mobile web, Google updated its Webmaster guidelines to include an important ranking signal, which is none other than the website loading speed. It has now become one of the biggest determinants of your website’s value and ranking position, making it one of several necessities for SEO and an absolute must for webmasters who want their site rank well in search results.
In this blog post, you will know why page loading speed is an important SEO ranking factor and how you can improve your site’s loading speed. Don’t forget that Google aims to make the user’s search experience better by identifying the most relevant sites connected with a particular search term, and ultimately makes everyone’s internet search simpler. Here are the 3 main reasons why site loading speed is so important to Google these days.
- The time spent on a web page is another aspect used to determine which sites should be awarded with top rankings. When your website loads fast, then you have a better chance of retaining site visitors.
- Google knows that site visitors do not wait for more than five seconds or more of your website to load. Unless they are already committed to your brand in some way, visitors will instantly click the next the link below your site in the search results.
- With the use of smartphones and tablets that are outpacing desktop PCs, site loading speed must be reliable no matter which device people use to access your website.
Five Tips to Improve Loading Speed of Your Site
Even the best SEO experts run into issues with speed of download. Below are the following five tips that will help you in improving site speed and rank higher in SERPs.
- On-page components Minimized – Between style-sheets, flash, and scripts multiple processes can occur behind the scenes that will significantly slow the loading time of a web page. The HTTP requests that make on-page elements function won’t have an opportunity to slow down your website if you combine style-sheets or replace images with CSS.
- Compression of Large Webpages – During 2014, Google has made it perfectly clear that the best practices in SEO must include the use of video, shareable media, and long-form content to reach more customers and rank higher in search results. Unfortunately, all this additional content can minimize loading speed. You need to try to compress your larger web pages so they take up minimum space and minimum bandwidth when they load.
- Turn on Your Browser Caching – You need to turn on browser caching that will store necessary elements on a viewer’s hard disk, which results in a faster load time when the visitor returns. Many site owners fail to realize the importance of this tool, and that will lead to slower loading speeds, and also the increasing frustration of site visitors.
- Visual Content Optimization – Some website owners may get mislead by the growing emphasis on visual content. If customers like visual content such as images, graphics and videos, they why not you fill your site with them. Unfortunately, too many graphics that are improperly formatted will result in site loading troubles. You have to take time to optimize visual content by reformatting images in JPEG, limiting size, and eliminating GIFs, TIFFs and BMPs.
- Filter Out Unnecessary Plugins – Running multiple plugins contributes to slower webpage loading times if you are using WordPress. Though their convenience and ease of use make plugins a preferred choice. Using too many of them will cause your site loading speed to crash and result in poor UX. So, you need to remove any plugins that your website doesn’t actually require.
Even though it may seem like a lot of extra-work, the ROI in terms of time will be well worth the hassle. When customers can depend on your website to load quickly on mobile or desktop platform, they are more likely to make a return visit, and return visits equal an increase in your loyal customer base.
