Simple! It’s not only what your visitors want; it’s also what Google wants. There’s a link between page speed and SEO, which is why your sites should load quickly.
Google’s primary goal is to offer consumers with the most relevant search results. Not only do search engines aim to show pages with information that best matches the user’s query, but they also want to show pages with outstanding user experiences. And, yes, page speed is an important component of a positive user experience.
Readability and simplicity of navigation are two more user experience elements to consider.
Bounce rate is another signal to Google of whether or not your site is good. Pages that load fast attract to site visitors and reduce bounce rate.
Users will grow dissatisfied and leave your website to locate one that offers the information they want more quickly if it takes longer than 3 seconds to fully load.
Google will notice if people regularly leave your site, and you will experience a reduction in search engine ranks. Because Google finds a link between a high bounce rate and a poor user experience, they penalise you in the search results.
Google believes that if people don’t stay on your website long enough to read your material, it must not be very excellent. They (or your site visitors) have no idea that you may have one of the greatest websites with the best content, but that they were unable to experience it because of your poor load time.
This emphasises the importance of page speed. Page speed can deter consumers from visiting your site in the first place, meaning they won’t learn about your company, view your products and services, or read your useful, informative content. Most importantly, they will not convert.
Is mobile involved?
Google launched its Performance Update in January 2018, stating that mobile speed is now a ranking element. As a result, site performance might affect both your desktop and mobile results.
This implies that when it comes to page performance optimization, it’s critical to think about mobile as well.
The same principles apply to optimising page performance for mobile devices as they do for desktop computers. Of course, you’ll want to make sure your website is mobile-friendly in the first place! This implies that your website is also functional and user-friendly on smaller displays!
4 factors that contribute to slow load time
There are a lot of factors that can contribute to slow load time including:
1. Sloppy HTML coding
Having poor HTML code on the backend of your site is one certain method to ensure that your pages load slowly.
HTML code determines how your page will seem to users when they visit your website. The code is made up of several tags that instruct the page on how to function and what to perform.
Every page on your website will have its own page of code, and the larger and more sophisticated your website becomes, the more complicated your code becomes. It’s easy for your code to become confused and sloppy at this point.
To keep your pages loaded as quickly as possible, make sure there are no unnecessary tags and that everything is correctly linked. Otherwise, the server will take longer to read the code, resulting in a slow-loading webpage.
2. Huge, unoptimized graphics
It’s critical to have visuals on your website if you want to provide a fantastic user experience. When you have a lot of information on one page, for example, it’s necessary to break it up with some photos, graphics, or video so the reader doesn’t become bored.
All of the extra images and movies that you may add to your web pages, on the other hand, might weigh it down and make it load slower.
One of the most common reasons of slow-loading pages is large, high-resolution images.
So, how can you make sure that your site’s visuals deliver a fantastic user experience while keeping page load times low? Improve the quality of your visuals!
Consider utilising a programme like Kraken.io to compress your picture files to make them smaller. It won’t affect the image’s visual size, but it will reduce the file size so that it loads faster on your website.
3. Too many redirects
When you wish to replace all links to an old webpage with references to a new one, you use redirects. When you replace old pages on your site, the redirects are bits of code placed in your.htaccess file on the server, and you may make as many as you need.
When you have a lot of redirects on the same page, though, your site will look to the.htaccess file to figure out where the link should be pointing. This is effectively the same as loading links twice on your website, which increases the time it takes for your page to load.
4. Server location and performance
One of the more straightforward considerations is that the farther your server is from your computer, the longer it will take for your website to load. That said, it’s critical to be aware of your server’s location. If your company is headquartered in the United States, for example, don’t choose a server in China.
You want to make sure you have a high-quality website hosting provider when it comes to server performance. The following is how it works:
- A user types your URL into their search bar, or visits your website from a search engine like Google
- Their browser notifies your server that they’re trying to visit your site, and asks for all the information necessary to visit your page
- If your server is high-quality, the information will arrive quickly
The quality of your server comes down to whether it’s shared or dedicated:
- Are you on a shared server? If so, you are sharing server space with another website and their traffic.
- Are you on a dedicated server? If so, you can ensure that you’re not sharing website traffic with another website. When you’re on a dedicated server, you’ll have a much faster loading time.
93% of customers are extremely satisfied with our results.
3 website optimization tools to help with page speed
Are you unsure where to begin when it comes to improving the speed of your website? Here are some of our favourite web optimization tools for determining your site’s page speed and determining what has to be done to enhance it.
1. Google Search Console
Google Search Console is arguably the best of the best when it comes to free tools to aid you in your page speed optimization efforts. It provides you with all of the necessary data to thoroughly analyse your website traffic, comprehend its performance, and receive advice on how to address the most pressing concerns.
2. Pingdom
When it comes to page optimization, Pingdom has a plethora of information. For starters, it offers reports in four different categories. It provides you with information such as a performance rating, the page’s history, an analysis, and much more. They also give recommendations on where you may improve your website.
Pingdom allows you to measure your page performance from Dallas, Melbourne, San Jose, and Stockholm, Sweden, if you’re interested in learning more about the speed of your website from other parts of the world. If you have clients all around the world, this is incredibly useful.
3. Stridec SEO Checker
Stridec has developed its own unique SEO checker tool that can assist with page optimization recommendations.
You may use our tool to enter the URL of your website, as well as the term you wish to check for and your email address. You’ll receive a complete PDF copy of the findings after you provide your email address.
What’s one of the tool’s finest features? You can even provide a competitor’s URL to see how it performs in comparison to yours!
When you obtain your customised PDF document, you’ll learn not only about your page performance, but also about a variety of additional metrics including picture analysis, title and description tag audit, copy and code analysis, and more.
Does your website need help in the page speed department?
Stridec can assist you if your bounce rate is high and your conversion rate is poor due to a slow-loading website. Each of our page speed optimization plans includes a slew of services that may help your website reach its full potential.
One of our page speed improvement programmes includes the following services:
Dedicated project point of contact
Stridec believes that you should have a single point of contact throughout the duration of your campaign. Why? You’ll always know who you’ll be speaking with this way. Your point of contact will be familiar with and knowledgeable about your campaign, and you won’t have to go through three different individuals to get your questions addressed.
We want to make sure you receive the best service possible, so we make sure you have a point of contact who can answer any questions you have, keep you up to date on your campaign, and more.
Project web developers
Page speed optimization is a procedure that takes time to complete. There are several behind-the-scenes initiatives underway to guarantee that your page performance is optimal. To complete the task, we hire web developers to ensure that it is completed correctly.
Audit of current server configuration
We’ll do an assessment of your present server settings to determine what your site need to be fast. After that, we’ll figure out what has to be done to make your site operate quicker.
“If needed” basis
On an “if needed” basis, we can do the following:
- Website/CSS optimization
- Combine CSS and Javascript files
- Gzip compression
- Caching setup and/or configuration
- Optimize/reduce number of redirects
And tons more.
Why should you use Stridec to improve the speed of your website? Take a look at the outcomes we’ve been able to achieve for our page speed customers in the past.
How much does page speed optimization cost?
For page speed optimization services, each provider will most likely charge a different fee. As a one-time investment, however, Stridec’s costs range from $3,125 to $11,500. This includes all of the services stated above!
We’re a full-service digital marketing business, so we provide a lot more than simply SEO. Take a peek at all of the services we provide in the list below!
- Pay-per-click advertising (PPC)
- Social media marketing
- Content marketing
- Email marketing
- Voice search optimization
- Competitor geofencing advertising
- Amazon SEO
- Website design
Though page speed is definitely important, other factors such as web design, content marketing, competition geofencing, and others may have a significant impact on your Google ranking.
So what’s the point of merely optimising your site for page speed? Consider combining your page speed optimization services with any of our other services to achieve the greatest results from your campaign!
Stridec’s qualifications come from where? We try to develop the finest, most effective programmes for our clients with over 200 digital marketing professionals on staff. We’re getting closer to our objective every day by generating revenue and leads for our clients – in fact, we’ve generated over $1 billion in revenue and over 4 million quality leads for them thus far.
Check out our over 500 client testimonials if you’re curious about what those clientele have to say about us.
Need help with getting your business found online? Stridec is a top SEO agency in Singapore that can help you achieve your objectives with a structured and effective SEO programme that will get your more customers and sales. Contact us for a discussion now.