Fast Websites Have Better SEO
I'm not sure "Fast Websites Have Better SEO" would make much of a tshirt slogan, but the benefits of site speed are worth paying attention to.
Did you know that 40% of people abandon a website page if it doesn't load in less than 3 seconds? THREE SECONDS y'all.
I can't even say Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious in 3 seconds.
Here's the deal: Google likes sites to load quickly because that makes searchers happy with the link they clicked on. If your website speed allows it to perform well for site visitors, it basically makes Google look good for having shown them the link. The longer they stay on your site, the more Google gets the message that your website is a great resource. This, in turn, will improve your SEO ranking.
Want to Test Your Site Speed
Using the Pingdom tool you can test your site speed from any geographic location. After entering your URL, scroll down the page to see your page loading time and how you compare to other sites. It will also give you tips on where you have room for improvement.
Test Your Site Speed Now
How Better Site Speed Will Get You Clients
Researchers have found that a one-second delay in page loading times results in a 7% reduction in conversions - that means the # of people who arrive on your site & then take a specific action such as scheduling a free consult with you. That's right - something as simple as reducing the time a website page takes to load can help you get more clients.
Tips to Reduce Your Site Loading Times
1. Improve Your Webhosting Package
Not all webhosts are created equal, and some of the larger hosts such as godaddy and bluehost are consistently problematic in the site speed department. Note: I actually recommended Bluehost for years but they were bought out by a larger company and sadly performance has deteriorated. >> Click here for my top web hosting reccos.
2. Optimize Your Images
Take an hour to go through the images on our site and ensure that they have been optimized for web use. If you loaded a large high resolution photo onto your site, the web browser has to use more energy to show that image than one that has been resized for your page and saved for web at a lower resolution. An easy tools to use for this is CANVA. Basically, if your image is 3000px wide it has no business being on your site unless you're planning on people using their big screen TV to view it. Simply resize it to 1600px wide if it is a full-width image, or 300 - 800px wide if it is a smaller image on the page, and compress the image to a lower quality for web viewing. Also, JPG files are smaller in size than PNG image files.
3. Reduce Your Plugins
Sometimes those of us with WordPress websites can get plugin overload when we get a little too excited about all the great things plugins can do for us. Before adding yet another plugin to your site, stop and ask yourself if it is truly necessary and worth the extra load on your site.