Google's Speed Update - Fast is now a factor for mobile rankings
Website speed has been a signal for desktop ranking for quite some time.
While speculation about its impact on mobile rankings has been widespread, it was finally made official this month.
On July 9, 2018, Google introduced its “Speed Update” for all users. The update means that speed is now a ranking factor for mobile search and will only affect “pages that provide users with the slowest experience” and applies to “all pages, regardless of the technology used to build the page.”
As SEO experts in Hamburg, we know that trying to squeeze an extra millisecond out of a fast website is unlikely to yield many benefits. However, websites with noticeable speed issues will feel the wrath. So if you’ve been putting off that website boost you’ve been planning, now’s the time to turn to the mechanic. Below you will find some hints to help you get started.
First, how do you know if your website has a speed problem? Thanks to Google, there are a few tools that will help you diagnose problems:
- Chrome User Experience Report: A public dataset of key user experience metrics for popular destinations on the web, as experienced by Chrome users in real-world conditions.
- Lighthouse: An automated tool and part of Chrome developer tools for checking the quality (performance, accessibility, etc.) of web pages.
- PageSpeed Insights: A tool that shows how well a page performs in the Chrome UX report and suggests performance optimizations.
If the above tools reveal problems, simply correct them by bringing your website’s performance up to the specified speed.
Below are five issues to fix.
1. image optimization
Image size is the bane of most website speed scores. In an effort to make websites look amazing, people fall into the trap of using large high-resolution images or media files. The reality is that we don’t need high-resolution files on the Internet because our screens don’t require it. However, due to poor training or laziness, these large media files sneak onto our websites and cause performance issues. There are numerous tools that help you quickly and easily compress images before you put them on your website to reduce load times, such as Compressor.io.
2. tighten your code
The code that controls how your website looks and functions contributes significantly to the speed of your website. Whether it’s the number of web calls to the server, the way it was written, or the number of script files used, all of these affect how fast your website loads. There are tips and tricks to improve the performance of all these elements. Talk to your web developer about the following:
- Reduce HTTP requests
Reduce the number of elements your site needs to download to render correctly (such as images, stylesheets, or scripts), or consider using the new HTTP/2 protocol that requests all elements at once. - Shrink files
There are ways to reduce the size of the files your website needs even before they are downloaded. This process is called minifying your files and can be done on your HTML, CSS, and Javascript files. You can learn how to minify your files here.
3. hosting infrastructure
Where and how you host your website is another important factor in how well your website performs. The location of the servers (local or overseas), the specifications of the server hardware, and whether you have dedicated or shared environments are all important considerations. Generally, if you choose the “cheapest” hosting option, it means that you compromise at least one of these points. So make sure you do your due diligence when reviewing your current hosting or looking for new options.
4. plugins
If your website was built with an open source CMS, it’s quite possible that it was developed with a number of built-in plugins, as well as additional plugins added to provide the required functionality. The problem with all these plugins is that they bloat the code behind your website and often make unnecessary server requests (even when not in use). Therefore, it is recommended to check your current plugins and uninstall all unnecessary ones.
5. CDNs
Beyond your hosting environment, you can also use content delivery networks (CDNs) to speed up your website’s loading times. CDNs are collections of servers around the world that keep a cached version of your website. This means that when someone loads your website, they will be directed to the server closest to them (reducing latency), and also no website will carry the entire load of your website traffic. Several content delivery networks are available, including the popular Cloudflare option.
There are many ways to improve the speed of your website and therefore your search results, these are just five of the most important methods. You can learn more about the other approaches on moz.com or crazyegg.com.
If you need help to make your website faster, contact us here.
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