Having a slow website isn’t fun for anyone. In fact, in today’s climate of impatient internet users, you may be surprised to find out that a website that takes ages to load may be doing more harm to your business than you might think. Consumers nowadays don’t have much of a tolerance for slow technology. Website speed may very well be the cause of lost online traffic or lower sales results – but, on top of that, it could be that a slow site may leave you getting punished by search engine rankings.
Let’s find out why page speed matters and what you can do to prevent slow load time!
This blog details the importance of website speed, and the effect a slow loading site may have on SERP rankings. If you need personalized advice on how to improve your website speed and fix your search engine rankings, reach out to Thrive Design today.
Don’t worry – understanding the logistics of website speed doesn’t require any sort of tech-savvy jargon or knowledge. Quite simply, page speed refers to the amount of time it takes for your webpage to load all its content. The quicker it loads and the easier it is to navigate all the different pages/links of your site, the more likely it is that you’ll be able to keep the attention of your online visitors. Even just a couple of extra seconds waiting for a page to load can lose you an endless number of potential customers. Nowadays, people value instant service, and a slow website can do a shocking amount of damage to your number of clients.
While most people would use these terms interchangeably, there is a difference between page speed and load time.
Google Page Speed is a score between 1 and 100 that considers a number of key website performance metrics. The tool will then offer suggestions on how to improve speed and overall site performance. This provides a great indicator of your site speed but doesn’t show you the exact time it takes for your page to load. To learn this, you’ll need to measure ‘load time’.
Load time is the average time it takes for your page to load. This is measured in seconds or milliseconds and shows how long it takes for the content to load between the time your user request comes in and the time the page finishes loading.
According to SEM Rush, 2 seconds is the benchmark for load time before people (and Google) start to lose patience. If your website is slower than this, it might be time to engage an SEO expert to improve your load time and page speed. If you’re struggling to break through with your SEO and your page load time is over 2 seconds – this could be the reason why!
You don’t have to stress over whether your website is up to par or not. Find out for yourself, right now! Google has a website available that can give you valuable insight into the functionality of your website and how speedy it is. Simply head to their page and insert the link to the site you want to test out, and get a better idea of what you may need to be improving on to be ranking higher on search engines.
So, what does a slow website have to do with Google rankings? Page speed happens to be a direct factor considered in SEO – meaning that a slow page speed could be impacting your ability to rank for your target keywords. This may seem daunting, but there are ways to find out whether your site speed may be letting you down, and lots of options to help get your site loading faster as soon as possible!
Does it look like your website might be a bit slow? Don’t panic! There are plenty of fixable reasons that your pages may not be loading as quickly as you’d like. Here are just a few easy things you can troubleshoot through to get your website loading faster:
Website speed is a simple thing that can make or break your digital marketing. Seeing your website slipping lower down the search engine rankings or failing to get the online traffic you desire can be endlessly frustrating, but there’s always plenty to be done. If you’re concerned about your website being too slow to best promote your business, take action today to get things back on track.
At Thrive Design, we’re ready to step in and use our expert knowledge to not just speed up your website, but help you climb those rankings and see the success you deserve. To get started, simply contact us today and get a quote for our services. Your customers will thank you!
