In 2010, Google included page speed as a desktop ranking factor. In 2018, Google rolled out mobile indexing first and made it a mobile ranking factor as well. This means that your website will be ranked based on your mobile presence, not desktop.
How does website load time affect SEO
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If your site is slow on mobile, your search ranking may be dumped in a few points. However, many people still do not make it a priority. There is a lot of controversy in the world of search engine optimization (SEO) discussing how important load time is in ranking and traffic .
While Google considers website load time to be a ranking signal, marketers are still wary. One study by Backlinko looked at 11.8 million Google search results to understand if there was a correlation between page speed and ranking. They found that there was no correlation between speed and first page (Google) rankings.
However, when you look closely at Google's "Speed Update", you'll notice that Google states that the update "will only affect pages that offer the slowest user experience and will only affect a small percentage of search queries."
While Google says this really only affects the slowest websites, site speed also affects other ranking factors such as bounce rates and time spent on the site. It is estimated that the average page load speed of a first page result on Google (Google) is 1.65 seconds. It is possible that if the web page is too slow, it will not reach the first page of (Google).
Despite this, page speed is often overlooked when it comes to setting an SEO strategy , even though it did make a significant impact on some organic traffic for the brand.
Users spend more time on websites that load faster and those users view fewer pages as page speed slows. In fact, those with an average page load time of two seconds had customers view an average of 8.9 pages, compared to those with a seven-second load time where users viewed just 3.7 pages. Whether or not page speed directly affects your rankings, it is clear that it has a huge impact on user behavior.
Factors that affect site load time
There are many factors that affect page load time. The time it takes for your page to load depends not only on your internet connection and browser, but also on your web hosting service, file types, and more.
Internet connection: The type of Internet you have and the speed of that connection can directly affect the time it takes to load a page – even if that page is well optimized.
Web Hosting Service and Uptime: The web hosting company you choose can have a huge impact on your website's load time. If your host server is slow, the entire website will be slow. When looking for a web hosting service , look for one with an uptime of 99.5% and above
Browser: The browser your customers use to search for products can also affect page speed. Older versions of browsers may have difficulty loading larger image files and icons. Ensure that you are always using the latest version of your preferred browser.
Large file types such as photos and videos: In general, the larger the file, the more difficult it is to upload. This usually appears with photos, videos, and animations. It is essential that you take the time to optimize and compress these large files as correctly as possible.
Plugins: While plugins (such as WordPress plugins) are a great way to add functionality to a website, having too many can hurt your page load time. If you choose to use a plugin, make sure it's optimized or designed to improve page load time. If not, you risk slowing down your site.
Heavy files (CSS and JavaScript): Your website consists of files (JavaScript and CSS). If these files are not optimized properly, they can slow down your website.
Cache filtering: The computer you or your clients are using can also have an impact on page speed. A cache on your computer stores information from the different websites you visit, making it easier for those sites to load once you visit them again. However, if you clear the cache a lot, you will notice that these websites load slower.
How fast is your web hosting service
As we mentioned above, choosing the right web hosting service for your website is very important. A web hosting service gives you the ability to publish your website on the World Wide Web, so it is essential to choose a fast and reliable service.
The most important factors to consider when choosing a web host
Loading time: Also referred to as “speed”
Uptime: a measure of system reliability
We recommend choosing a web hosting provider with less than 700ms load time and 99.94% uptime and above. To help, we took a look at 59 of the best web hosting services and compared the loading time and uptime of each provider over the past week. Below are our results.
The average page load time for all 60 providers was 885 ms.
The average uptime for all 60 providers was 99%.
The web hosting service with the fastest loading time was (HostGator Cloud), with a load time of 232ms.
The web hosting service with the second fastest loading time was (DigitalOcean), with a load time of 234ms.
The web hosting service with the third fastest load time was (A2 Hosting), with a load time of 256ms.
If you are using WordPress , the hosting service from A2 Hosting has the fastest loading time than any other web host in our database. However, there are other features to consider such as added features, cost, and support.