Faster Than Light: How Page Load Speed Impacts Your SEO

December 28, 2020


page load speed

The internet has more than 5 billion users. That means more than half of the world’s population uses the internet daily.

Without a doubt, the internet is the undisputed champion for reaching more potential customers. That is why companies work hard to get their websites up and running.

But a lot more is involved when entering the ring of the internet, as you need to understand SEO metrics. Some standard SEO metrics are bounce rate, page load speed, and average time on page.

Today we will briefly touch on what SEO is and then focus on one part of SEO metrics, the page load speed. So if you are still an underdog in the world of SEO, this article will help you come out on top.

And if you are still having problems and feel like throwing in the towel, contact a reputable digital marketing team to help you get back into the fight!

What Is SEO?

SEO, or search engine optimization, improves the quality and amount of website traffic to a website or a web page from search engines. By tracking SEO metrics, you can estimate whether your approach is working, what kinds of results you’re accomplishing, and where you can improve moving forward.

As you can imagine, SEO is what will push your company above the competition. So if you are always being uppercut by your rivals, then your SEO isn’t fully optimized.

And one key factor is how long your website takes to load.

What Is Page Speed?

Page speed can be defined as the time it takes for the site to fully display the content and how long it takes your browser to get the first byte of information from the server.

In layman’s terms, it’s how much time it takes for the site to load on your screen.

And in today’s fast-paced society, no one has the patience to wait for a website to load. So if a website takes a tiny bit too long to load, users will look for a different site, and your bounce rate will increase. In essence, your website is in competition with other websites to see which one is the fastest.

Page Load Speed & SEO

Let’s begin by testing your website’s load speed.

You can do this by using Google Page Speed Insight. Keep in mind that this page load speed test is not 100% accurate but gives you a good idea of your current page load speed. Let’s take a look at the page load score:

  • Red (0 – 49)
  • Yellow (50 – 89)
  • Green (90 – 100)

Red means you need to optimize your page load speed, as this will certainly drive away visitors. Scoring yellow makes you a fringe contender, which is good but can be improved for better results.

And green makes you the reigning champion, so sit back and enjoy the benefits of a fully optimized website.

Does Your Speed Ranking Matter?

Owning more than 240 companies, Google is the mack daddy of business.

With that being said, they will always aim for sites that have the best page load speed. And Google has created an algorithm that detects page load speed. If the algorithm detects a low load speed, it will bump you down to the bottom.

The algorithm also takes into account mobile-friendliness. So if you are still working on a mobile version of your site, go ahead and get it done. In any case, you should establish a mobile site since a mobile website is a great way to reach a broader target audience.

But load speed also affects more than just human users. Page load speed can also affect how bots work on your site.

Bots & Page Load Speed

If you are an underdog, you may not know what bots have to do in the SEO fighting scene. But bots play a vital role in increasing your site’s visibility. Let’s briefly see what their part is in SEO metrics.

Bot “crawling” is when a search engine assigns a bot to a web page or web post and analyze the page. Crawling is the first element of having a search engine to approve your page and show it in search results. Once it’s been approved, your site will be indexed.

When the search engine bot crawls a page, it scans the links on that page and assigns another bot to them. The more links you have, the longer it may take to complete its crawl. So how does page load speed affect crawl speed?

Google gives you the capability to set a crawl budget since search engines have limited time and resources to search billions of pages at a time. With a crawl budget set, it will determine the quantity of time they can and will use on your site in a given session.

But if your load page speed is lacking, the bots will not complete their job on all of your websites. And as you can imagine, if a bot can’t complete its scan, it will either not index your site at all or set it at a much lower position.

What Can You Do to Improve Your Page Load Speed?

It does take some time to gather the necessary information to fully optimize a page load speed. That is why it’s always recommended to use a digital marketing team to help out.

Let’s briefly list what you can do to optimize the page load speed:

  • Check host provider
  • Reduce Javascript
  • Disable certain plug-ins
  • Compress content
  • Reduce redirects
  • Utilize Content Distribution Network

There are more factors to examine, but these are the most common problems that cause slow loading speeds.

Don’t Let SEO Knock You Out of the Ring

The page load speed is only one aspect of SEO metrics. But don’t worry, even though SEO metrics seem like an intimidating foe, you can achieve victory with the right training.

If you require a professional digital marketing sparing partner, contact us today! We have elite SEO fighters that are ready to help your site come out as the reigning champion.