To improve your website performance for gaining mileage in SEO, you must pay apt attention to website speed. How fast the web pages open soon upon clicking the link is what usually people refer to as website speed. It is normal for website owners to face issues with website speed and they must be ready to identify the reasons for slow speed and address the issues on a war footing. From themes to plugins and all other integrations done on the website can impact website speed and you must monitor it carefully to find out the factors that hinder speed and take corrective action.
Better SEO for speedy websites
Providing the best user experience is the goal of any website for which you need speedy websites. Users expect to have a smooth and seamless browsing experience which is only possible when the website speed is good enough to open pages fast. Search engines too are ready to walk the extra mile for providing an unforgettable experience to users but must depend on the performance of websites to accomplish it. Therefore, it is not surprising that page speed which plays a vital role in ensuring the better user experience is now a ranking factor for Google. Whether you want to please users or want to do well in earning high ranks in search results, either way, you have no option but to create and maintain a speedy website that both users and search engines would love.
Page Speed is linked to Conversion rates and revenue
Page speed or website speed has a direct relation to conversion rates and impacts SEO performance which is another reason why you can never afford to take it lightly. Users expect any web page to open within 2-3 seconds of clicking and the longer it takes more frustrated they become. The audience has very little patience to bear with the delay and would abandon the site if it does not open almost immediately. It increases the bounce rate which is counterproductive for SEO as Google treats it as a negative point when deciding about ranking. On the other hand, fast opening websites delight users who spend more time on sites and enhances the possibilities for conversion. In addition, page speed impacts quality score of sites and even the ad campaigns.
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Look at an example to understand the impact of site speed on the revenue earning capabilities of websites. Ads generate a revenue stream for websites and studies have shown that mobile sites that load within 5 seconds earn twice the ad revenue earned by mobile sites that take 19 seconds to open.
In this article, we will discuss how to make websites speedier by looking beyond websites.
The target to achieve
Website speed does not depend on the website properties alone, but many extraneous factors like web hosting server speed affect the page opening time. However, before you decide on an action plan, it is necessary to set a goal first. For all practical purposes, WordPress websites have all elements built into it that can support faster page opening time under 2 seconds. However, it depends on the selection of the right WordPress themes because all themes are not conducive for creating high-speed websites. Users too would be happy if a page opens in 2 seconds is what the professionals of a reputed Sydney SEO Agency feel. Google, of course, might not be too pleased with this target because it has set a mark of 200 milliseconds for page opening time.
The components of page load time
Page loading time is the time elapsed between users clicking on a link and opening of a web page. For a web page to open, the tapping on a smartphone or clicking the mouse sends a command to the server that processes the information and serves the page to users. At the front end, we can see the mouse and computer or any mobile device while at the back end is the hosting server that remains invisible. A number of operations happen in sequence from the time of clicking until the page becomes visible. Therefore, the page loading time is the cumulative time taken to perform all the actions that begin at the front end and terminate with the server.
Focus on the server
Focusing on the server to ensure that it not only supports the inbuilt website speed but also helps to enhance it is a more practical approach to ensure speedy website. Understanding the optimization process deployed by the server should help to devise a plan for optimizing the resources for supporting higher website speed. The server performance depends on the time it takes to display an HTML page and keeping it under a second assures good website speed.
Causes for sluggish server
Although many reasons can slow down server speed, the main contributors are inefficient coding and bottlenecks in the delivery system. Addressing the two areas can help to improve server speed thereby ensuring that it does not hinder or slow down the inbuilt speed of websites. Proper coding of the server not only supports the website speed but also improve it. Server optimization has its limitations, and for further improvement, it may be necessary to opt for speedier servers.
Page caching
Extracting data or information from the database, placing it on templates and finally serving it – this is the modus operandi of servers. The server efficiency and the power of code determine the time it takes to display data. To save time by cutting down on the repetitive process for every query, it is advisable to use the technique of page caching that creates the page once only and keeps serving it as many times the query keeps surfacing. It saves the time to display pages thereby ensuring that users can see the page as soon as they request for it.
Only when you optimize the website for higher speed than you should turn to optimize the server, for which you must work together with the web hosting company.
