Your website loading speed has a direct impact on your rankings in SERP. The quicker the load time, cthe higher will be the ranking. Fast speed is so essential for a website that Google considers it as one of the ranking factors.

Page speed gives you the measurement of how fast your site loads. If your website loads in less than three seconds, the chances to rank higher increases. But if your website takes 3 to four seconds, it may affect your traffic and conversion rate. The site performance and speed have become more important with time, so optimizing speed plays a major role.

Page Speed and SEO

If you want to see your website on top search pages, your focus should be on page speed. With Google’s PageSpeed Insights, you will be able to determine the performance of your website. This tool will help you to identify the issues and recommend suggestions of how to fix them.

The top pages of Google are the ones that get organic traffic. If you don’t optimize for speed, your website will be relegated to the third or fourth page of Google. When a user searches for the content, the user clicks on the first ten links. Also, most people don’t search beyond the second page.

SEO plays an important role in your site’s overall growth which is the reason why most SEO experts evaluate the page speed metrics for SEO purposes. A website that takes longer than 5 seconds to load can expect a bounce rate of 90%. Page speed optimization is the core of SEO strategy, so you need to check out and implement various ways to improve your site’s page speed.

Ways to Improve Page Speed for SEO Rankings

1. Choose a Good Web Host

Your web host plays the most important role in the speed of your website. If you choose a basic plan or Shared plan, it may affect the speed of the website. Low-quality and free hosting can also cause issues with loading. Proximity to web server plays the biggest role. If the website is near the server, it may load in two or three seconds. If the server is far from the location, it will affect the speed.

The volume of clients on a single server and server’s RAM are two contributing factors that affect speed. Since a user will never return to a site that takes more than 4 seconds to load, poor hosting could cost you thousands of dollars.

2. Time to first-byte feature

How long your browser takes to receive the first byte of information matters the most. Google PageSpeed Insight is the perfect tool that will help you evaluate this feature. Once you put your website link, you will get results of the first contentful paint, DOMContent loaded by pulling all the data from the root. When you run a test using Google PageSpeed insight, it includes all the suggestions on areas you can work on. The results differ for desktop and mobile versions, as mobile takes a longer time loading bigger websites.

3. Inactive Plugins

Inactive plugins or plugins that aren’t in use are another cause of slow website speed. Plugins have an option of activation and deactivation if you don’t want to use them. Inactive plugins also cause lags and vulnerability to the security of the website.

You can consider some measures to use the plugins wisely:

• Install plugins only when you think they are required.
• Clear the website cache, and minify the CSS and JavaScript files.
• If the plugin is inactive for three months, consider removing it from your website.
• Try installing only those plugins that are up-to-date and compatible with your website.

4. Use Content Delivery Network

Using the Content delivery network or CDN can reduce the time taken to load the pages. When the users’ browse the internet, the proximity of the server can affect how fast the content delivers to the users. CDN hosts the content of your website in the cloud and allows the nearest server to your client to handle the delivery part. As a result, the site loads at a faster speed.

Geographical proximity is a speed factor, and CDN takes care of this. It eliminates all the associated delays that come with website loading. CDN utilizes caching to reduce your hosting bandwidth and prevents downtime. CDN can help you with optimal delivery of videos, JavaScript files, images, HTML pages, and style sheets. Apart from improving SEO, it can be beneficial for security, mitigation against DDoS attacks, and availability.

5. Clean all your website codes

Most people don’t pay heed to the website codes. While the technical team handles this, there are ways through which you can ensure that your website’s codes are clean. Website codes affect the site speed and when you get an insight on these codes, focus on the following areas – JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and theme files.

Poorly configured files often conflict with the user’s browser and negatively affect the loading speed. You can enable the dynamic caching feature and minify all the JavaScript files. Don’t make changes to parent theme files; your focus should be on the child theme files.

6. Compress Images

Image compression has the potential to improve your site’s speed. You need to follow the image optimization checklist for compression. Use vector formats and minify the SVG assets. Experiment with the quality settings and remove the unnecessary image metadata. Serve the scaled images and invest in automated tools to make sure your images are always optimized for SEO.

To Conclude

According to Google, speed is relevant to search ranking. So, there is a strong link between the two. When you optimize your website for page speed, it will boost the ranking of your website. A website that loads in less than three seconds will rank higher, and it will increase your website traffic. Use different website speed tools and optimize your website for optimal performance.

Author Bio:- Sudhir Bhushan is a Tech & Social enthusiast & Founder of HostGator coupon Code. He is also a Web Entrepreneur by Profession and loves to write about the latest trends in Social Media & SEO.