How Fast Should My Website Load
Website speed has been a hot topic in the SEO world lately. It may be a minor ranking factor but it is a major usability factor and your slow website is costing you money. So just how fast should my website load?
“2 seconds is the threshold for ecommerce website acceptability. At Google, we aim for under half a second.” Maile Ohye – Google.
Under half a second for a webpage to load? Whoa!
Most users to your website these days will be using mobile devices. These users will expect your website to load instantly. If it doesn’t they will leave and go to another website that does. This would be especially bad if you had an ecommerce website.
Google’s website load speed aim above is a true reflection on what website users truly want.
Websites do load slightly differently on mobiles and it can be a little bit slower. Your website should be using GZIP, a cache and it should be optimized for speed including content, code and images just to start with.
With Google’s planned move to a mobile first index (now likely to be pushed back to early 2018) mobile design and usability should be at the forefront of any web designer, developer or SEO’s mind. But it should be considered more as a UX improvement then a ranking factor.
Website speed is a minor ranking factor. If your website loads quicker than your competitors and it has better content and information you will probably outrank them.
Website speed is a factor with Google crawling your website. The quicker google can crawl your site the happier you will make the Googlebot.
Dave’s Top Tip to Make Your Website Faster
Optimise your Images. Most sites that I look at to review and audit have images that are huge. Crop and size your images and run them through a compression tool such as TinyPNG. There is no point in a user loading a full-size image at 3mb and 3000x2000 pixels if the actual size on page required is only 600x450. You could easily shrink the photo and compress down to under 200kb.
You should aim to make your website as fast as you can with the resources you have. Every little bit helps.
Do you know how fast your website loads? Contact DNA Web to find out more.
Written by Dave Stansfield - 20 Sep 2017