Is Your Website’s Page Download Speed Negatively Affecting Your SEO?

July 20, 2022

Google is consistently trying to keep itself at the top of the search engine options charts. So it needs to make sure that every website it populates is also a top notch source for the keyword phrase the searcher is looking for. One of the many ways Google ranks your website is your page download speed.

Why else should you be concerned about download speed?

Two reasons, you want your website visitors to 1) stay long enough to 2) do something. As we’ll define in more detail, your visitors won’t hang around for more than a few seconds waiting for your page to download. Which means potentially unproductive traffic to your site for you and worse, the loss of a potential lead.

So, you (ideally with TMM as your Google Ads Management & SEO resource) drive quality traffic to your website. What happens next is between you and your web design agency. Together, your objective is to examine and rebuild your site as necessary to escalate conversions of visitors to customers. One of those considerations should be your website's page download speed.

Read on for facts and solutions to accelerate your website’s conversion rate.

Magnify Your Web Pages Loading Speed

Addressing this issue directly, slow page-load performance will negatively impact your objective to accelerate your success in website conversions.

A slow loading website hurts your business in three ways:

Poor User Experience - No one wants to wait more than a few seconds for a page to load. A website visitor staring at a blank screen each time they try to view a different page on your website might bypass using your service or purchasing your product all together.
Increased Bounce Rates and Lower Conversion Rates - We live in a world of instant gratification. It's easier for most people to hit the back button and go to a different website than it is for them to wait for your page to load.
Poor Page Ranking on Google - That's right, Google will penalize your slow loading website in their Search Engine Results. Basically, Google wants the searcher to have a good experience when they click on Google Search Results. We rarely see pages in the top half of page 1 with 10+ second page load times.

Experts have reported important, even alarming, downsides to slow loading of pages. Here are some of the more important findings.

Customers Are Impatient

1 in 4 visitors would abandon a website that takes more than 4 seconds to load
1 second delay reduces customer satisfaction by 16%
47% of website visitors expect pages to load in 2 seconds or less,plus you will lose an additional 10% of your visitors with every additional second of delay.
52% of web shoppers report quick page loading as crucial to their loyalty to a website.
79% of online shoppers who are unhappy about website performance say they won’t return to the site to buy again.

At least half of web searches are via mobile devices.

Some estimates by Google are as high as 60% in the U.S. What does that mean about your website loading speed? Plenty!

64% of mobile users expect pages to load in 4 seconds or less.
Google has transitioned to “mobile-first” indexing. That means it now prioritizes the mobile versions of websites over desktop versions as it relates to ranking and indexing.
Lower Google ranking and indexing means your website is less likely to appear on Google Page 1 - regardless of your SEO or Google Ads skills.

OK, so given those metrics you may well be wondering about your exposure and potential to suffer a “down-ranking” based on less than stellar mobile user experiences. Ensure that your website design is mobile-friendly to attract and retain mobile users’ positive experiences on your website.

Address Your Mobile Page Download Speeds, Not Just Desktop

Audience Participation Exercise

OK. Here’s a chance for self-examination of your website. Visit https://pagespeed.web.dev/ and pick one of your landing pages. This FREE tool will tell you exactly how quickly your page’s download speed is for both desktop and mobile.

Not only will this tool tell you your page download speeds, it will also provide you with a list of things your web developer can do to help improve your page speeds!

Your Next Steps … Boost Page Download Speed … Accelerate Conversions
You and your website design agency can work together to improve your website's visitor experience and ensure they’ll want to convert into a client.

Depending on your unique circumstances, we anticipate that one or more issues may need to be reviewed, revised or implemented:

Size of files on your website;
Inclusion of photos, graphics;
Streamlined website coding;
Compelling content.

Our job at Third Marble Marketing is to deliver proven, successful strategies to maximize the effectiveness of your Google Ads, improve your SEO strategy, feature you on Page One of Google and drive pre-qualified traffic to your website! However, your website's download speeds can greatly affect our ability to get you on page one. We hope you found this article helpful!

Are you ready to add SEO services to your marketing tool box? Schedule an introductory call with one of our Google Experts today. We hope this helps!

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