Since 2018, website loading speed has become one of the most important factors in determining your website’s ranking on Google’s search engine.
Generally, all of us, whether we are website owners or website visitors, feel annoyed when we open a website page that may take a long time to load.
It will waste our time if we have to wait for the entire content to load successfully.
The importance of this article lies in the fact that mobile users are now the largest group using the internet. Targeting mobile search audiences is crucial for attracting visitors and generating high traffic for websites and online stores by ranking high in mobile search results.
In 2017, Google said it would update its search engine algorithms to take website loading speed into account, which would be a ranking factor on mobile search pages.
In 2018, Google announced that website loading speed was now a factor that could impact a website’s ranking on desktop search pages.
Today we’re announcing that starting July 2018, page speed will be a ranking factor for mobile search queries.
This is what we have all noticed from that time until today, as the speed of loading the site has a real and significant impact on improving search engines, especially for searching on websites.
Since then, website loading speed has had a significant impact on your website’s ranking on all devices, whether desktop computers, smartphones, or tablets.
Impact of site speed update
This also applies to all pages of the website, so if the first page, i.e., the home page of your website, has a slow loading speed, you will definitely lose out if your competitors have a faster home page.
Conversely, if your product page loads faster while your competitor’s product page loads slower, your product page will likely rank higher.
However, you need to remember that loading is not the main and only factor that can affect your website’s ranking on Google search engine page, but there are many other factors to determine the ranking position of a website page.
Additionally, with this speed update, your website’s ranking may vary when viewed from desktop and mobile searches. This will certainly impact the number of visitors to your site and the user experience.
Sites to check the loading speed of website pages
Here are some sites you should use to test your site’s speed performance, and what are the most important factors that affect your site’s loading speed.
1. Google PageSpeed Insights
2. GTmetrix
3. Pingdom
Tips to speed up your website
There are a number of tips that can help you make the most of this speed update, including what I mentioned in my article about 6 tips to improve your site’s speed and SEO performance. We also add other important tips as follows:
1. Use responsive templates
There are now many great and responsive Blogger templates and WordPress themes.
Responsive means that if a website is opened using different devices such as computers, tablets, or smartphones, it can adjust its appearance according to the device being used.
Using a responsive template or theme will definitely add value to your website at this time.
2. Use lightweight templates.
In addition to being responsive, use a lightweight template or theme so that it doesn’t make your website load too slowly.
There are many themes, especially WordPress themes, that have good designs but are heavy to load, so it’s best to avoid such things.
So if your website looks simple but has good content and loads fast, Google will definitely prefer it, and your website will be able to appear better in search engine results and will rank on the first pages of Google’s search engine.
3. Reduce the use of add-ons and extensions.
For both Blogger and WordPress users, the use of plugins should be limited to avoid them negatively impacting your website’s loading time for too long.
So use tools and plugins only as needed.
4. Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
You can use forms that already support AMP to get maximum results on both desktop and mobile devices.
AMP makes it possible to create fast, high-performing websites and ads.
Although it is a bit tedious in my opinion, there are rules and requirements for creating a valid AMP page.
But I think this is a good choice for a fast-loading website with maximum responsiveness.
5. Check if your site is mobile-friendly.
Websites are increasingly being accessed via mobile devices, so it’s important that your website is mobile-friendly.
I say this because the data I have shows that 68% of Web Addict’s website visitors come from mobile devices.
We also know that smartphone technology is now developing very rapidly, besides the price is also relatively reasonable compared to computers or laptops, so people are using the internet more through their smartphones.
Mobile-friendly sites dominate the top spots in Google search results.
So we need to change the design of our website, blog, or online store so that its appearance is compatible with different devices and screens.
Therefore, to find out whether our site is mobile-friendly or not, please visit the following link for Google’s mobile-friendly test tool:
https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly
To make your website mobile-friendly, use a responsive template or theme, but not all responsive templates have a display resolution that fits a variety of desktop and mobile devices.
Therefore, every website owner must ensure that their website speed is optimized to improve its performance in search engines and to provide a better experience for every user.
This was a quick article about the importance of website loading speed in improving your mobile search rankings, as speed has become a key factor in mobile SEO. I hope I’ve been helpful.
