Simple Website Fixes – Part 10

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Welcome to the latest edition of our newest weekly blog series, Simple Website Fixes. Each week we will identify and explain one easy change that you can make to your company’s website in order to improve performance. Last week’s fix was – Add Video.

This week’s fix = Add Speed

A faster site is a better site. Page load speed is now king.

In this series of simple website fixes, this is less simple. But it might just be the most important. As web users continue their shift away from desktop computers toward mobile devices, the speed with which each page on your site loads becomes more important than ever before.

There are two reasons to add speed to your site. First, users will expect it. If it takes too long to load, they will leave, and you will have forfeited a potential sale.

Second, Google expects it. They have already started penalizing sites in their search results who do not focus on the mobile experience, and page load times will influence organic rankings more and more going forward.

Lucky for us, Google also offers this free tool to test the speed of your site. Enter your URL and hit Analyze and they’ll tell you how you stack up. In addition, they’ll give you a list of things you can do to improve. All for free!

To improve the quality of your website, make it lightning fast.

Have an idea for a simple website fix? Submit it here and maybe we will include it in an upcoming post.

Page Speed is King

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In the world of search engine optimization, the factors that decide where your site shows up on the results page of a user’s search are constantly changing. Google, the search king, tinkers endlessly with their algorithm, long kept under lock and key, in order to create a better user experience.

These changes are necessary, especially as technologies and search behaviors change. They ensure that searchers are more likely to see the site that they are looking for when they search.

For marketers, it means constantly working to ensure that your site shows up at or near the top of relevant search results pages (SERPs).

Today’s “it” ranking factor = Page Speed

Content used to be king. Create more content, better content, and you’ll be better positioned from an SEO perspective.

Now page speed is king. And that’s because mobile searches represent a fast-growing majority of all searches. A slow-loading website is sure to turn mobile users off, so Google takes that into account when ranking sites on a mobile device.

Want to know how Google thinks your site is performing on mobile? Here is a handy tool they created, and it’s free to use.

Want to know how you can boost your website’s page speed? Read this beginner’s guide to increasing web page load times.