Are you aware that you can improve your search rankings, your conversion rates and reduce your cost per acquisition by focusing on just one aspect of SEO? Isn’t that great? You can definitely reap multiple benefits, as mentioned, if you focus on optimising for high page speed score. This is because page speed is one of the critical factors that has far reaching impacts on your SEO efforts. Each user interaction is important in contributing to your overall website performance. Thus, ensuring that the user experience of your website is optimal is the first crucial step to achieving success for your business.

Page Speed can also be called page load time. This refers to the time it takes for your browser to display the entire content on the page. Google has provided a free tool for you to use to measure your page speed, Google PageSpeed Insights. 

Page speed performance is one of the critical signals used by Google to rank pages on their search results page. A slow page speed means that Google is not able to crawl and index all the pages on your website. This will definitely affect your ranking.

Hitting a perfect 100% on Google’s PageSpeed insights is not an easy feat. It requires a lot of time and effort but it is possible to maintain a high score. Remember that focusing on this one aspect of SEO can help you attract and retain traffic easily, drive higher conversions and also increase your revenue! 

4 Steps To Improve Your PageSpeed Score 

1. Compress Large Images

Most of the time, the biggest factor of slow page speed are the large images on the pages. The bigger the image size the longer it takes to load, which slows down your loading speeds. There are plenty of free online tools that help you to compress your images without compromising on quality. You can check out CompressJPEG or Optimizilla as some of the options. 

2. Minify HTML Codes

Similar to compressing large images, this tip is referring to reducing the space that your HTML codes take up. Minifying your codes will help you to fix, shorten, and even remove any unnecessary lines of code. Depending on your CMS of choice, there should be available plug-ins for you to utilise to help you with this.

3. Enable Browser Caching

Browser caching simply means that your browsers will not have to reload your entire site for a returning visitor. When you enable browser caching, your browser will “remember” the previously loaded elements on your website. This means that data such as company logo and website footers do not have to re-loaded at every visit. This will definitely improve the overall page loading speed of your website.

4. Implement Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

As mobile users are on the rise, they are set to take over the desktop users. Thus, Google actually initiated a project which helps mobile pages to load faster. This is done by removing all the unnecessary content and displaying only the relevant information to users. AMP Pages are essentially simplified versions of your web pages. It is a more streamlined approach when viewing on mobile devices which usually have smaller screens sizes. This improves the user experience. Therefore, AMP pages are usually prioritised by Google and will appear at the top of search engine results. 

Conclusion

When building your website, it is easy to fall into the trap of wanting to build a perfect website that is aesthetically pleasing in every way. However, these complex visual designs are the elements which will slow down your website speed. It is wise to always remember that Google values good user experience. And that’s why you should too!

While visual appeal is important, take the time to ensure that you are also delivering top marks on your page loading speed. Remember that getting this score can help your website get the boost it needs to be successful. 

Achieving ideal page speeds can be a time consuming process. Let us help you get that green score and speed up your load speeds. Reach out to us and get your page loading speeds up to par in no time at all!