12 Jun Optimizing Site Speed to Improve Site Rankings
Who could forget the dilemma caused by Google’s inclusion of site speed as a determining factor in search engine rankings? Perhaps it’s time to remind you that site speed has been included in Google’s algorithms. So, to make it to the top of the search engine’s search results, your site has to be optimized to fully load into browsers as quickly as possible.
Optimizing site speed doesn’t improve only your website’s rankings but also visitors’ experience on your website. Site speed, traffic, and website ranking significantly affect each other. If your website loads and responds quickly, people won’t have problems viewing it. Website speed is an important factor for most, if not all, Web users. If a website or a webpage takes too long to load, site visitors end up going elsewhere to find what they need. Slow site speed discourages visitors from returning to your site. On a larger scale, overall website traffic drops and your SEO strategies are rendered useless.
It’s important for website owners to choose an effective hosting company for their website. This won’t cost you more than web hosting normally would, because all you have to do is choose a hosting company that can provide the services you need. The best hosting company allows you to enjoy the combined benefits of fast site speeds and affordable services.
Google’s goal
In a post on Google’s Webmaster Central Blog, Amit Singhal and Matt Cutts explained the reason behind the inclusion of site speed as a factor in Google’s search rankings. Web users place a high importance on site speed when it comes to the websites they browse, and Google wants to cater to this need. Because of this change in Google’s algorithms, website owners everywhere have been spending more time on making their websites faster, to make these sites rank on Google.
On the other hand, some experts say that Google is trying to kill online advertising. With faster websites, people may start to care less about paid advertising on websites. Eventually, website owners may opt to stop hosting these ads and start relying completely on Google.
However, for Web users and some website owners, the change leads to improved SEO processes. This poses a challenge to all web developers and web hosting companies because Google now favors faster websites. Web developers have to code and construct websites more carefully, taking overall site speed into consideration.
The aftermath
Whenever Matt Cutts and the rest of Google announce changes, SEO bloggers all over the globe listen. The moment the information goes global, it automatically creates a buzz among SEO-concerned website owners. Although this change has shown no physical results yet, many website owners nowadays are already focused on developing their websites to improve site speed.