If you’ve got a website or are in the process of creating a website, one of the most important factors when it comes to your site’s functionality is its speed. And this isn’t to say the content, navigation, and ability to contact you aren’t also important, but a slow website can be the do or die when it comes to user experience. Let’s dig into why it’s important to prioritize your website’s SEO strategy and how your slow website can negatively impact your search engine rankings.
What is SEO?
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the process of helping a website be easily found on search engines, such as Google, Bing, or Yahoo!, Duck Duck Go, etc. When creating the components of your website, you want to keep SEO in mind; the better your SEO Ranking, the better your site will rank in search engine results. That means more eyes on your business—a win-win for you and your customers.
When looking at your website’s SEO strategy , the focus should be on creating high-quality, informative content that puts the user first. Anyone going to your website needs to be able to easily navigate it, going from page to page of the best content available. In addition, headings, paragraphs, and images should be easy to read and understand. Images that are too large will cause issues when it comes to your site load speed.
Have you ever tried to click on a link to a website and it takes forever to load? Most likely, you’ll click away and try going somewhere else.
Since Google and other search engines want to send visitors to high-quality websites, website speeds are increasingly important and do in fact impact how your website ranks (more on that later in the article). A slow website will negatively hurt this ranking, meaning those customers might never find you.
Why is SEO Important?
Let’s look at two different examples to illustrate this idea.
Say a person has a plumbing emergency and they need to find a plumber in the middle of the night. They go to Google and type in “24/7 plumber in Madison.” Because your site has a strong SEO strategy, it runs at an optimal speed. That means your plumbing business shows up as the first result on Google. The customer finds your site, and they get their plumbing emergency resolved quickly. Way to go!
In our second scenario, everything about your business site is the same except for your website speed. In this example, it takes a long time for your site and its individual pages to load. This one small change hurts your Google ranking, and now you’re not even close to the first page of results. That means the customer calls someone else because they don’t even know you exist. Your slow website isn’t just bad for your business, it’s also bad for the customer who has to sort through multiple sites to find someone to help them.
How Google (And Other Search Engines) Rank Your Website
Of course, you want your business website performing like the first example and not the second. While there are entire teams dedicated to SEO, there’s quite a bit you can do on your own to increase your site’s ranking.
Here are a few pointers to increase your visibility in search engine results—
✔️ Use a keyword strategy on your website – Identify how people are searching for your services and use these “keywords” to tailor content to your users.
✔️ Produce high-quality, relevant content such as blogs and videos – Google wants to be able to answer the questions people are searching for and if your website has the resources to answer those questions, you will rank higher.
✔️ Try to keep all pages at 300+ words (of useful content) – Longer, quality content shows Google that you have the knowledge around your industry and topics.
✔️ Link to authoritative sources and have sources link back to you – This shows Google that you are a trustworthy website.
✔️ Increase your slow loading website’s speed.
Tricks to Repair Your Slow Website and Increase Your Speed
You might be wondering why speed matters when it comes to SEO. The answer is simple—it’s to protect customers and make sure they have a better online experience. Besides annoying visitors, slow websites hurt your business’s credibility and weigh heavily with the Google algorithm.
And keep in mind: it’s just as important (if not more important!) for your site to load on mobile devices to load as quickly as on desktops.
At Eviva Media, we’re always looking for ways to improve our clients’ websites. When a recent Google update placed more importance on website loading speed, our development team was able to crack the code and identified ways to increase our client’s website rankings dramatically!
Take a look at some of our results.
If you don’t have a web developer on your team, here are the easiest methods to increase your website speed for better searchability—
- Optimize high-resolution & large images by reducing their size (An easy way to do this is to save them as a JPG instead of an other image format).
- Make sure you’re using a quality hosting provider.
- Get a FREE website & marketing audit.
- Hire an agency that specializes in website design and performance.
How Eviva Media Can Help
We take over the building and maintenance of your website so you can focus on what matters most—your products, services, and your customers. We have different services and packages for all our customers’ needs, with premium website hosting included.
If you have a need for speed (trust us—you do!), we’ve got solutions with monthly speed improvements. That means you never have to worry about the behind-the-scenes magic that makes your website work harder for you and your customers.
Plus, our packages pay for themselves and more by improving your website’s user experience and Google ranking—driving more customers to your door! Read more about our packages on our website hosting and maintenance page.
Already have a website? Get a free website & marketing audit to see how your current site is performing and how quickly it runs!
