BY SHAWN BYRNE
In today's digital world, having a website can make a world of difference for your business. Some research indicates that 6 out of 10 customers expect brands to have an online presence. However, many people do not realize that having a website will not always suffice.
Most digital consumers are impatient. That said, even if your on-page SEO is exceptional, visitors will still leave your site in an instant if you overlook one crucial aspect: page speed. Page speed has been considered a key ranking factor for many years now.
What started as a mere metric to assess how fast a site visitor can see content has evolved into one of the most vital indicators of a website's overall user experience. Page speed is also considered one of the crucial factors that can affect customer retention, attention, and conversion.
Why Page Speed is Important
Boosting page speed provides many enticing benefits. Some of the most notable ones include:
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It provides a better user experience. A Kissmetrics report revealed that 47% of website visitors expect a page to load in 2 seconds or less. At least 40% will abandon a site that takes 3 seconds to load. A fast-loading website will provide an exceptional user experience and entice people to stay on your site longer.
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It can help boost your rankings. Faster page speed can also mean Google can crawl and index pages faster. The more pages Google indexes, the better chances you will have of ranking higher.
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It helps your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) efforts. In 2017, Google confirmed they are giving page speed more importance by including mobile site speed when ranking websites on its mobile-first pages.
The importance of boosting page speed cannot be overstated. Still not convinced? Check out our infographic below.
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About the Author
Shawn Byrne is the founder and CEO of SEOPhoenix.net. Shawn started his career in I.T. troubleshooting workstations, servers, and networks; then went on to doing SEO as a side project and quickly found success in ranking websites. It was easy for him to grasp not only the algorithms but also the technical side which most SEO strategists miss and neglect because of its complexities. SEO Phoenix then grew based on its own rankings and referrals.
