Speed Is An Important SEO Factor

Writing by Nick Stamoulis Tweet

One of the least considered aspects of SEO is page loading speed. In the normal course of events, speed is only a small consideration. However, as your page gains authority and climbs to the front page of the SERP’s, speed can become an important factor.

If your page appears near the top of the SERP’s, you are going to receive an increase in your traffic volume. If, however, your page load speed is slow, you stand the risk of losing that traffic before the page has finished loading. This can have a negative impact on your SEO strategies.

There seems to be a growing consensus that high bounce rates for pages found through search have their rankings reduced over time. From the search engines perspective, if the page found in the search results is not what the searcher is looking for, then that page must have little relevance for that keyword. Because of that, the search engine drops it further down the results list, effectively reducing its rankings for that keyword, a result that is the reverse of your SEO outcomes.

With this in mind, there are two areas that should be looked at closely. The first is the loading speed of the page in question. It should load as quickly as possible, within seconds ideally. The second aspect is the page content itself. Make sure it does relate to the keywords – not only the keywords that you optimized for, but also the long tail keywords that searchers may use. The search engine has associated those phrases because they believe there is relevance. Don’t let the searcher down.

Traffic can be hard to get. Getting a page ranked highly can be difficult. When searchers do find your pages in the results, don’t let them down. By letting them down, you are letting your own search engine optimization efforts go to waste and possibly costing your business income. Can you afford to lose customers?