Page Speed Matters! Why You Need to Improve Yours Today

Website Page Speed is the simplest side of SEO yet it is basically overlooked by all SEO providers. Web Developers and Marketers, don’t consider how fast a page loads as much as they should when building a website but when you consider it from a user’s point of view it is crucial. Have you ever been to a site that didn’t load in the first 2, 3, 4 or even 10 seconds? Did you wait or did you hit the dreaded back button? Well if that was your site then you just lost a lead or a potential customer.

So how do you know if your site is really fast and it’s not just your internet connection because the kids are watching Netflix? Well, Google has the Google Page Insights tool which breaks down the essentials of what they rank your site’s speed on and shows it to you.

https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/

It might seem unusual that Google gives you this tool to help your site but for Google to remain the best search engine in the world it has to serve the most relevant content and link you to great websites. If Google linked you to slow, clunky websites which took a long time to load would you still like it as much? Of course not.

What are the main things which slow a site down?

There are a lot of things that slow your site down and some of these are just not cost-effective to fix. If it is going to take a 75% rewrite of your site and a few prayers to get a couple of extra points then it’s not worth it. However, the key ones can be done in a few day’s work which a few of the top troublemakers we always find to be:

• Image Size
• CSS and Javascript file size
• Server Compression
• Browser Caching

These are all fixes (except image sizes) and can dramatically increase your site’s speed in reality and more importantly in Google’s eyes.

What is a good score?

Google Page Insights ranks your page out of 100 but you will never get 100/100. A good score is actually in the 70s and can vary a little based on what website CMS you use. Some enterprise-level CMSs like Sitecore and custom applications like Ruby on Rails can rank you quite high very easily. Other CMSs such as WordPress may struggle to get you 70-75, however, it is generally better than when you start.

Want help improving your Google Page Insights score? Contact Us to get started.