If you were wondering how Google’s speed ranking factor has been affecting SEO, wonder no more. Now that we are one year past the initial flood of information about this update, what kinds of long-term changes are we seeing? It’s true that Google is absolutely favoring websites that load quickly and are accessible to mobile users. Here’s what you need to know to judge if you are ready for this with your search engine optimization efforts – and how we can help!

Why Does Speed Matter in SEO?

Did you know that most visitors to your website will decide if they want to stay on it within the first three seconds of visiting? That is almost no time at all to make an impression, so you want to ensure that your site is eye-catching, well-designed, and has something great to offer.

But no potential reader can see any of that if your website takes too long to load. The average load time for a mobile landing page in 2017 was 22 seconds. So after three seconds of waiting for a site to load, many visitors just click away (bounce). If you want to lure in those readers and boost your page speed ranking status, you must have a website that loads at lightning speed. For example, Google’s research when creating this ranking factor showed that if your page load time is between 1 and 3 seconds, it increases the chance of a bounce (lost visitor) by 32%. And if your page takes up to 10 seconds to load, the chance of a bounce increases to 123%.

Since we know that over half of all Internet users these days are on mobile devices, if your website isn’t responsive to mobile devices, you are losing a huge crowd of potential readers, buyers, or subscribers.

How We Can Help You Adjust Your Site for Optimal SEO and Speed

You may not think that your digital marketing efforts have anything to do with the load speed of your pages. But there are some things you can do within your online marketing strategy to help your site rank higher in this new Google ranking system. For example, we can help you learn which keywords and pages on your site to focus on when working on building load speed. If your keywords are well-optimized for a specific search phrase, you’ll want to zero in on the pages with that phrase first.

We can also help you optimize the pages that do load quickly, so that you are taking full advantage of something that Google is valuing highly these days. You’ll get the boost of both rankings for your site. To learn more about our digital marketing, local SEO or content marketing services or to get started, contact us on our site here.