Why is your slow website costing you leads?
- Google favors fast speed
- Easy user experience to guide them to your CTA
- In 2022, google changed the importance of web speed. It is now extremely important to ranking and can affect where you show in google search results, thus affecting traffic and your ability to generate leads and revenue
What is site speed?
Website Speed, or site speed is how quickly the content and files of your website load on a web browser. This includes images, text, videos, forms and more.
Things that can potentially slow down your website:
- File sizes that are unnecessarily large
- Unused/excess plugins
- Storing media files on your website
- Sliders
- Videos
- Malware
What tools can I use to track website speed?
The great thing about tracking website speed is that it’s easy and free. There are tools that can be used directly from Google and third-party websites to verify this information.
What is Google’s Site Speed Test?
The Google Site Speed test can be found here and consists of a numeric score from 1-100 that grades your desktop and mobile speed. Mobile is oftentimes the slower of the two, yet is increasing in importance for Google Search Engine Rankings, especially in 2022.
The site speed test that Google tells how quickly the initial content loads, how much the content moves on the page, and the load speed of all content on the page with these six factors:
- First contentful paint:
- Speed Index:
- Large Contentful Paint
- Time To Interact
- Total Blocking Time
- Cumulative layout shift
If you scored poorly on Google’s site speed test (below 70) and would like some assistance in improving how quickly your pages load Contact Us!
What is GTMetrix Site Speed Test?
GTMetrix is one of many third-party tools that will grade your website’s speed. This is a great option to confirm your website’s speed and identify ways to improve it. GTMetrix breaks down the score into two components, Grade and Web Vitals.
The grade consists of the letter grade, performance of the website, and the structure of it, which affects load speeds of the content. The latter half is the Web vitals which consist of three factors relating to how quickly the largest content loads, how much content moves or shifts on the page, and load speeds in responsive mode (on a mobile device or tablet)
What’s important to GT Metrix?
- Structure of the website
- How quickly it loads in responsive (mobile/tablet)
- How much the pages moves after loading
If you scored poorly on GTMetrix site speed grade (below A) and would like some assistance in improving how quickly your pages load CONTACT US!
Does my website speed affect SEO?
Yes, having both your desktop and mobile in the 80-90+ range is great for user experience and impacts how your site will appear in the rankings. Google favors pages that have higher site speeds on both mobile and desktop.
Increasing or improving your site speed can assist in reducing bounce rate, or the amount of users who immediately exit the site after entering and how long the user stays on site, both of which impact your SEO effectiveness. Improving user experience and the time they spend on the website, and reducing bounce rate can lead to improved conversion rates, generating more leads for your site, turning it into a powerful revenue generator.
What Site speed factors contribute to SEO:
- Actual page speed
- Mobile
- Desktop
- Google Core Web Vitals
- Bounce Rate
- Users’ Time Spent on Website
Why does site speed matter in 2023?
- Better User Experience
- More Effective SEO
- Better Leads
- More Potential Revenue
Your website’s speed is more important than ever before. Increasing website speed not only improves the user experience of your website, but assists you when Google is displaying websites in search results.
Conclusion
In 2022, website speed is extremely important and is one of the easier ways to improve your website. Not only will it improve user experience, but also the effectiveness of SEO. Utilizing tools like Google Site Speed Test and GTMetrix will provide a baseline of where you are at, to help you get to where you want to go.
If you are struggling to improve your website’s speed, we can help! Reach out to us for a free consultation to improve your website or web audit to supercharge your website today!
