Why is Page Speed Important for SEO and How to Maximize it?

Did you spend days laboring over your website design? Are you worried that your site is not as fast as you expected it to be? Page speed is the page loading time which is obviously an integral part of building conversions. Most of the time, people tend to focus more on accommodating better aesthetic designs or adding more content to their web pages. But unfortunately, users are more concerned about the speed of the page rather than all the whistles and bells you add on your website.

Are you still in a dilemma regarding the relevance of the speed? Well, think twice! Would you prefer a website that loads slowly over the one which loads within a fraction of seconds? According to research by Google in 2018, 53 percent of mobile users skip a site that takes longer than just three seconds to load. One of the best aspects of having a website that loads quickly is that it gets preferential treatment from Google.

However, the problem of the slow-loading page is not much challenging to fix. Have a look at this blog to understand the reasons for page’s speed importance and some ways which can help you speed up your page. Alternatively, one can avail of the best SEO services to fix this problem with the help of professional SEO executives.

Why your Page Speed is Essential for SEO?

How long do you expect a website to load? Well, statistics reveal that none of us even wait for two seconds for the webpage’s content to pop up. You must be curious to know why page loading speed is so important and how a fraction of a second makes a big difference. So let’s clarify all the doubts:

• User’s experience: Website visitors, customers, and readers instantly make a judgment about your business with the help of your website. A fast-loading website lasts a strong impression and is considered professional and reliable. While a slow-loading site makes users think insecure and unsafe. Changing the first negative impression is next to impossible, and because of that, nearly 80% of the potential customers won’t ever come back to your site. So, it’s better not to frustrate the users and cause into lousy user experience as they will consider you as an untrustworthy site.
• Users expect speed: No matter what, users always expect quick results whether they are on a desktop, laptop, tablet, or mobile phone. When you talk about big and established companies, such as Google or Facebook, website visitors find it okay to get a short delay. But if you have a small business, you can not afford this luxury, so it’s better to be as quick as possible from the beginning.
• Slow-speed drives conversions and sales away: No matter how much effort you’ve put in making your website look fantastic, people will never stay if the page does not show the results within 3 seconds. A slow-loading webpage leads to a loss in conversion rate as well as sales. So, one necessarily needs to speed up the website’s performance and maximize the number of visitors.
• Speed affects your Google rank: If your server is slower than three seconds, Google will reduce the number of crawlers it sends to your site. Page speed is a crucial SEO factor as search engines focus on delivering the best online experience to the users. Google will always penalize you if you do not have a fast-loading page, irrespective of how perfect the quality and design of your website is.

How to Increase the Page Speed to Improve SEO Performance?

Here is what all you can do to shave off a few seconds from the loading time of your site and decrease the bounce rate:

• Minimize image size: It would be a great decision to optimize and resize images to ensure fast loading time. One should always remember that high-resolution images are bulky and consume more bandwidth, which makes it longer to process. Image size should be kept under 100KB to get the ideal loading time of the page. Also, you can shrink the file size of an image by using a different format. For example, if you have .png images, it’s better if you convert them to compressed .jpg images.
• Minify JavaScript and Cascading Style Sheets: It is suggested to move CSS rules or JavaScript snippets into an external file instead of including the same code on every page. Once done, you would only have to load the document one time for each visit to the website. With the help of minifying all JavaScript and Stylesheet on the mobile site, one can reduce the overall consumption of bandwidth and ameliorate mobile caching.
• Optimize Caches: Users must make sure that the mobile browser uses local memory to cache resources to ignore unnecessary server errors. It is recommended to use “Expire” headers for cacheable resources such as JS, PDF files, CSS, etc. It allows the server to know for how long to cache an item.
• Do away with Redirects: Using too many redirects can confuse the browser and cause slow loading at times. The best thing to sort out this problem is to simplify the redirects as much as possible. Some tools such as Google Page Speed Insights can help you know what redirects are active on the site.
• Use a content delivery network: A content delivery network works wonders by spreading the server load across different locations and allowing the nearest server provides data to local users. So if you have been struggling with the page loading time of your website, you must go for a CDN. A content delivery network compresses the file size and sends them quickly to the closest locations.

These are the methods you can implement to solve the problem of a slow loading page. One can use Page Speed Insights to know the accurate time your page takes to load. If these steps do not come out to be helpful, you must look for the best SEO company in India and speak to professionals regarding the matter. They would provide you with the most prominent ways using which you can improve Page Speed, hence conversions.