Google statistics show that three seconds is the average expectation for loading times. Anything more than seven seconds will certainly result in them leaving your website entirely.
Not only will this result in lost sales chances from visitors who choose to leave the site, but it will also impact your future conversion rates because of the site’s poor ranking due to its high bounce rates.
WHAT IS PAGE SPEED?
Page speed measures how quickly a browser displays a page after receiving the first batch of data from a server. The speed of a site may influence its overall ranking because the pages that load slowly have higher bounce rates and shorter average session durations. Additionally, it has been suggested that poor page speeds hurt conversion rates.
By dividing the total number of website page sessions by the number of zero-second single-page sessions, bounce rates are determined.
When there are a lot of zero-second page hits on a website, it can be considered that users are impatient and won’t wait for the page to load. Therefore, improving page speed is a crucial area to pay attention to.
There are numerous methods for evaluating page speed.
The following metrics are ones that Google may be taking into account based on the elements that its Page Speed Insights tool has examined:
- Time To First Byte (TTFB):
It is the time it takes for the server hosting your website to reply. It is the interval of time between when a user initiates an HTTP request and when the user’s browser receives the first byte of the requested page.
- First Contentful Painting (FCP):
This is the amount of time the website needs to load in order to render the first pieces of content that are specified in its Document Object Model (DOM). This material is crucial since it provides the user with resources to interact with, lowering the bounce rate.
- Fully Loaded Page:
This is the amount of time needed to render the complete web page, including all of its content. It is the simplest method for determining how quickly a page loads on your website.
WHY DOES PAGE SPEED MATTER FOR SEO?
Page and site speed now play a crucial role in how search engines rank your pages when it comes to SEO. Perhaps more than anything else besides having excellent content that immediately responds to your consumers’ search queries. Google has modified its algorithm in recent years to account for user experience. A responsive and speedy site is one of the most important elements for a positive user experience.
There is a good possibility that a user will quit a website that takes more than a few seconds (if that) to load, increasing the bounce rate of that website. When Google notices a bounce, it makes some educated guesses as to why the user could have left. Google will probably believe the user didn’t locate the content they were looking for if there is a very quick bounce.
THE BEST TECHNIQUES FOR INCREASING WEBSITE PAGE SPEED
- Use Content Distribution Networks(CDNs)
Networks for distributing content are effective tools for distributing the content of your website. These networks make use of servers to show quick results in several places.
Data from your website is copied by CDNs and stored on faraway servers. A server that is closer to the user produces a quick response when he requests access to your website.
As a result, users may access your website more quickly. The use of CDNs significantly boosts a website’s SEO.
- Enhance and Minify the Code
Today, the majority of developers advise Gzip for file compression. You can use this software to cut more than 150 bytes from the size of your CCS, HTML, and JavaScript files. However, using this tool on picture files is not recommended because it might reduce the overall quality of the image. The easiest technique to compress photos while maintaining image quality is to use specialised graphic programmes like Photoshop. Correct file compression can increase page performance by up to 90%.
- By Optimising Media Files
Sometimes, the size of the images, videos, and even audio used on a webpage is greater than is strictly necessary. This, of course, stops your web pages from loading quickly because it requires extra HTTP request time.
For example, a graphic image should be in the PNG format, a photo should be in the JPEG format, and you can even utilise CSS sprites to create image templates, which will help your image load more quickly.
Here, adding a code area for the image has made it possible for your target audience to quickly load the image as written content on your page.
- Activate Browser Caching
Your browser must establish a connection with the website’s web server each time you visit it in order to download the complete website.
This method only needs to be done the first time someone sees your website if you have browser caching enabled. For repeat visitors, this has a significant impact even though it doesn’t speed up your website for first-time users.
- Verify Your Web Hosting
The most affordable web hosting package isn’t always the best. When your website is first launched, cheap hosting could be acceptable, but as traffic grows, you’ll need something more substantial.
Your website speed will be affected by the business and the plan you select. Investigate your hosting options thoroughly to choose the one that would enhance your performance.
CONCLUSION
Google’s page speed ranking variables are more crucial than ever to the position of your website in search results. These are just a few SEO and Google Page Speed Optimisation pointers to boost the speed and ranking of your website.
Additionally, it’s vital to be sure to use current SEO techniques as Google has already made a few updates to their ranking variables. This will help to secure the success of your website.
