Most people know that maintaining an online presence is an essential part of building a thriving business. This is why so many companies invest in developing informative and useful online interfaces for their customers to engage with while generating SEO campaigns to attract new visitors.
Recently, however, there have been new developments in how search engines like Google value certain websites and rank them accordingly, especially ones who don’t meet their standards when it comes to catering to the overall user experience. Now, more than ever, website load times and navigation speeds play an essential role in the sustainability of your website and how it ranks in the search engines.
Here are three reasons why this is the case.
Caters To Mobile Users
Today, more internet users are browsing from their mobile devices than any other method. Why does this matter? People are looking for more convenient ways to find what they’re looking for online, meaning websites are expected to operate at a higher standard of performance. Slow loading times and page speed can significantly affect the user’s ability to get the quick and easy answers their looking for and dramatically diminishes the website’s value. This is especially the case if the site is not optimized to operate efficiently on smaller device screens.
Improves User Experience and Increases Conversions
Most recently, Google has released their new Speed Update that is designed to evaluate and restructure search engine ranking factors associated with how well a website performs under speed tests. Since their inception, Google has always strived to keep the user first when it comes to their ranking algorithms, and with the modern-day importance of quick and easy browsing being so critical, it was only a matter of time before they began to enforce page speed and load times.
There is a significant correlation between website speed performance and increased sales conversions. When customers find the information they’re looking for, and they’re able to do so without disconnects or slower website performance, they are much more likely to make a purchase and continue using Google as their search engine of choice – it’s a win-win-win.
Page Speed Affects Your Search Engine Rankings
When it comes down to it, how fast a customer can access your website is the very first impression you make about your brand, products, and services. In fact, research has shown that 79% of online shoppers say they will not use a website again if they’ve experienced trouble with load speeds in the past. This makes it critical to ensure your website performance is up to par, and search engines like Google are continuing to enforce this importance.
If Google detects that your website performance is under par, they will reduce that amount of web crawlers they send to your website on a regular basis. What does this mean? It means that the next time you put out a blog post or make any new updates to your website, it’s a strong possibility that it will take much longer for that new content to be found by search engines, or even rank at all.
There are a variety of ways that website owners can improve their webpage speed and load times, many of which easy to implement and can significantly improve the user experience. Some of these include:
- Compress All of Your Website Images
- Use a Premium Website Theme
- Improve Website Caching With Website Plugins
- Clean Up All Broken Links
- Invest In a Content Delivery Network
As newer technology continues to develop, specifically in the consumer markets, it is becoming vital that businesses and their websites can adapt to the growing needs of their customers and user base. By giving due diligence to website performance and investing in services to help improve the online user experience, companies can continue to see better sales results overall while significantly enhancing their SEO efforts.
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Check out our case study on how we improved page load times by 85%!
