To understand Page Speed, you need to understand the interaction between the web browser and website hosting servers.
‘A web page or media content is displayed on the requesting web-browser after being downloaded from Website Hosting Servers.’
The length of time taken by the downloading and displaying of Web Page or Media Content is Page Speed.
Let us delve deep into the concepts of Page Speed and how it plays a key role in SEO –
Table of Contents
Page Speed Introduction
In simple words, you can understand Page Speed as the page loading time, which is the time taken to display the full content on any particular page.
Some industry experts also define Page Speed as Time to First Byte. As per this definition, Page Speed can be understood as the time a browser takes in receiving the first byte of the information from the web server.
There are several elements that are needed for you to understand the essence of page speed so that it will be able to give the best of user experience and website performance.
First thing first, Page Speed is related to the time taken in providing the requested content/media alongside the HTML content to the browser. Another element that you should pay attention to is the response of the browser to the page load requests.
In addition to all this, site owners need to be aware of the satisfaction of the end users with the page load time.
Role of Page Speed in Site Performance & Search Engine Rankings
As mentioned above, Page Speed is one of the most important factors associated with site performance. It is something that determines the search engine ranking because it falls under the different factors that Google algorithm considers for Search Engine Ranking.
Factors like user-experience, the responsiveness of the website are directly proportional to the Page Speed that can take website performance to the new heights.
Experts at Google have been able to discover that loading time of 0.4 seconds or more than 0.4 seconds may lead to Page Speed degradation. The online businesses want to deliver all the products and services very quickly, which is the reason why page speed is an important parameter to be taken care of.
So, how can you evaluate your Page Speed?
How to Evaluate your Page Speed?
You will be able to value your page speed with the help of Google Page Speed Insights.
The Speed Score of Google Page Speed Insights include-
- Data from Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX)
- Reports on two specific speed metrics- First Contentful Paint (FCP) & DOMContentLoaded (DCL)
Now, you may think about what the different factors are behind the lower page speed. So, let us have a look upon some of those reasons-
Factors that can slow down your Page Speed
- Heavy Image Page
- Website Host
- Too Large Files that must be downloaded
- Too Many Ads
- No Optimization of Plugins, Apps, and Browsers
- External Embedded Media
- Themed or Widgets
- Double Barreled Code
What happens when the page speed is not optimum?
If the page speed is not optimum then about one among four visitors will prefer leaving your site if it does not load after 3 seconds. Now people have a very less attention span, i.e. around 2 seconds, which is why it is important to increase the page speed at any cost.
Optimized PageSpeed helps in engaging the people so that the business-oriented websites can have the profit that they have been looking for.
Let us now understand how important Page Loading Speed is for SEO-
Importance of Page Loading Speed for SEO
Google considers the page speed as one of the best signals that its algorithms use to give the search engine ranking of the pages. Time to the first byte is always measured by Google in deciding the page speed of a site.
Two of the major downsides of slow page speed on SEO are-
- If your page speed is slow, then Google will crawl fewer pages in the decided crawling budget, which will for sure be a downside for the indexation of your site pages.
- The second downside is actually associated with the user experience. Slower page speed is an important factor behind the increased bounce rate. Such pages also have lower avg. Time on Page. So, it will reduce the conversions of your site.
Now, the question arises how you can increase the Page Speed, so without any further ado, let us have a look upon some of the strategies that will enable you to do this like a pro-
8 Best SEO Tips to Increase Page Speed
#1. Opt for File Compression to Increase Page Speed
It is always a good thing to use software application for compressing the files so that the size of the JavaScript and HTML files can be smaller than 150 bytes.
The smaller the file size, the better will be the page loading speed, and you will be able to gain control over the website ranking.
#2. Optimizing the HTML, CSS and JavaScript Codes
Try to optimize the code by eliminating all the spaces and the unnecessary characters, so that your page speed can be incredibly increased.
Google advanced towards the use of UglifyJS and CSSNano for ensuring optimized Page Speed of your site.
#3. Use of Browser Caching is recommended
From stylesheets, Java Scripts File to Images and a lot more, Browser cache comprises of a lot of details, therefore when a visitor gets back to the site, the browser does not have to reload the entire thing.
There are a number of things to see whether you already have the expiration date set for the cache.
You should be setting the expiration header for how long you want that information to be stored in the browser and keep it for a considerable time period so that the page speed can improve.
#4. Reducing the number of redirections can help
Every time a page gets redirect to another page, the visitor grows impatient in waiting for the request to complete and leaves the website.
That is the reason why it is always a better option to reduce the number of redirects and instead implement direct linking in the website.
#5. Use of CDN
CDN is actually Content distribution network or content delivery network which are used in order to distribute the burden of delivering the content to different geographically active data centers.
Most importantly, the copies of a website are stored in various data centers across the globe, so that the users can have easy access to your website indifferent of the geographical locations.
#6. Removal of render-blocking JavaScript is Important
Many of the browsers have created a DOM tree so that the page can be rendered. If the browser approaches any script during the process, it has to be executed before continuation can happen.
Use of blocking JavaScript should be avoided or minimized is recommended by Google.
#7. Improve the response time of the server
The response time of the server is definitely affected by the kind of traffic along with other factors like the amount of traffic that you receive, variety of resources that each page use, the kind of software used by Servers and also the hosting servers.
To go for better performance, you should definitely improve the server response time by fixing the problems like slow routing and lack of adequate memory.
The right server time that ensures better page speed is 200ms.
#8. Image Optimization is the Key
Mostly the page loading speed of the website depends on the kind of images that the website contains which is one of the primary reasons why you should focus on optimizing the images with better graphics and perfect formats.
You can opt for CSS Sprites that will help you in the creation of a template for images that are repeatedly used on your site pages. This way, such images will be combined into one large file, so they can load in one go. This will decrease load time and increase Page Speed.
Wrapping it up!
To talk turkey, there are a number of ways in which page speed can be optimized, and you just need to take care of the aforementioned tips and implement what needs to be done.
With better Page Speed, you will, for sure, be more effective in engaging your audiences that will not only boost SEO but also help in lead generations and conversions.
So, what do you think of Page Speed? Share your views about the effectiveness of the aforementioned SEO tips in increasing Page Speed in the comments below.
