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Site speed was essential in 2018. It is impossible to overstate how vital site speed is for your overall Digital Marketing Services and web presence. It has a significant impact on SEO rankings for desktop and mobile devices (especially now that Google is introducing its mobile-first index), on paid ads with their impact on the quality score on Google, and on the overall user experience.
Slow websites will likely have low conversion rates, high bounce rates, and low pages per visit. A slow website will cause people to leave because they don’t have the patience to wait until a page loads. It is especially important when the conversion funnel is long. There is always a drop-off when a conversion funnel is long and has many pages and steps. But drop-off increases when your website is slow, and you have a complex conversion funnel.
We’ll examine the impact of site speed on multiple digital channels.
The Impact of Site Speed on SEO
Site speed is an important ranking factor, even more so for mobile devices. Google will be rolling out its Mobile First Index in July 2018. This means that now is the best time to optimize your mobile site so you don’t lose out when the index is officially launched. We have seen how site speed impacts our clients’ organic traffic and SEO rankings.
Site speed is an important ranking factor because it indicates the user is getting a good experience. A faster site speed results in a more positive user experience. Users tend to stay on a website longer when it is faster. They also convert better and bounce much less. Google made site speed a ranking consideration for these reasons.
Three to four seconds is considered a good load time. It varies depending on the site type and industry, but you are doing well if you can load your pages in less than three to four seconds. As soon as you surpass this load time, your rankings and user experience will suffer. We’d likely see improved rankings if we could reduce the page speed to under three to four seconds.
This is something we have experienced firsthand with a client. The client’s developer removed the site speed optimizations we implemented on their website. After the optimizations had been removed, the website went from having a four-second load time to one that took 12 seconds. Rankings plummeted. We updated the site again with the correct site speed optimizations, and the rankings rose.
It was clear that the site speed directly relates to your marketing strategy and keyword rankings. It’s rare to see SEO results in real-time. SEO is a race that takes place slowly and steadily. But we observed the impact on rankings a couple of days after removing and re-implementing site speed optimizations. This was a good experiment because we knew that site speed impacted SEO. But this showed how much Google values it from a desktop and mobile search perspective.
Site speed positively impacts the user experience of other digital channels, such as paid search.
The Impact of Site Speed on Paid Search
Quality score is what determines the cost-effectiveness of your keyword bidding. In paid media, the quality score is how Google views your landing page about a particular search term. It also looks at user experience. Google perceives slow site speed as a bad user experience, which will lower your quality score.
The quality score determines the cost per click (CPC) you will pay and how high your position will be on the SERP. It’s difficult to appear in the first two SERP positions without a poor site speed/quality rating. Depending on your keywords’ competitiveness, it might be impossible for you to even show up. Your ads will not appear if you have a quality score that is too low. As you can see from the above, quality score has a major impact on PPC.
A low load time will also result in a lower conversion rate and a higher bounce rate, two things you do not want to happen when trying to generate sales or leads.
The quality score is the most important metric to consider regarding PPC. This will ensure that your ads perform at their best. A higher quality score will result in higher ad placement and lower click costs. You can expect a higher quality score, lower costs, and a higher ranking with a faster site.
The Impact of Site Speed on Social Ads
Facebook, like Google, favors a faster site when it comes time to display ads. Facebook, like Google, wants you to see the best results for your interests.
Facebook made an algorithmic update to its site speed in August 2017. This was done to improve user experience. We’ve already discussed that the faster the site, the more user-friendly it is and the better its performance. Facebook has announced that the site speed and overall user experience will determine whether your ads are prioritized. Many factors influence Facebook’s social ads algorithm. However, fast loading speeds influence the priority of the ads in the newsfeed.
The Impact of Site Speed on User Experience and Sales
Site speed is important for a variety of digital marketing channels. However, it’s the user experience and conversion that matter. The user experience is a factor in SEO, Paid Search, and Paid Social. Site speed plays a role in the user experience.
Site speed is one of the main reasons why people leave websites. A bounce does not view multiple web pages before leaving a site. The bounce rate is the percentage of visitors to your website who leave immediately. Slow-loading sites will cause people to leave the site. Because of this, slow sites have a high bounce rate, while faster sites have a lower one. It is important to remember that bounce rate also affects SEO relevance. This is why it is important to maintain a low bounce rate.
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