While Google’s announcement regarding site speed in 2010 wasn’t a surprise for many in the SEO community, it still shocks many website owners. Everyone knows a website should be fast and efficient, but did you know that Google rankings consider site speed when ranking websites in Universal Search? The faster the site speed, the better the site responds to requests.
This requirement in the algorithm also benefits Google, as faster sites will be more straightforward for them to index.
How is your loading speed?
If your website takes a long time to load, your site begins to slip down the rankings. While this has been true for desktop sites for some time, mobile sites are now affected as well. Google recommends the following tools to help evaluate your website’s mobile performance:
- Chrome User Experience Report, a public dataset of key user experience metrics for popular destinations on the web, as experienced by Chrome users under real-world conditions
- Lighthouse, an automated tool and a part of Chrome Developer Tools for auditing the quality (performance, accessibility, and more) of web pages
- PageSpeed Insights, a tool that indicates how well a page performs on the Chrome UX Report and suggests performance optimizations
Algorithm Factors
The major factors in Google’s algorithm remain the relevancy of content to the query, backlinks, and relevance of inbound links, reputation, and unique, valuable content. These factors can often carry more weight in the algorithm than site speed, so the core of your video SEO strategy remains intact.
However, it is always a good idea to make things as easy for your viewers as possible, as any delay could cause someone to move on to another site.
VSEO Content
Take a look at whether you post or host your VSEO content. Are you doing it in a way that best serves your target audience? Which option will be faster and more efficient for you? Should you embed it on your page, or post it elsewhere? Other factors to consider include your host, your publishing platform, the quality of images on your site, plug-ins or flash animations, or any other feature that would slow your initial load time (and ultimately affect your Universal Search ranking.)
Slow loading – now what?
If you do find that your Web site loads slowly, you should work to resolve the problems. Here are some points to consider when analyzing your website:
- Minimize HTTP requests & DNS lookups
- Maximize Parallel Downloads
- Combine external JavaScript
- Combine Stylesheets to under three if possible – remove excessive CSS coding
- Ensure that your images have dimensions labeled
- Compress images
- Avoid redirects (JavaScript)
- Minify the size of HTML coding, CSS file size, JavaScript file size and images
Increase Your Site Speed | SearchPro Systems
The critical thing to remember is that site speed is one small part of your overall strategy but a crucial one. If you have strong content and a positive reputation, you’re on your way to the top of the page. So, why let something as small as site speed slow you down?
SearchPro Systems is a leading New England-based national digital marketing firm. Our team of experts offers complete end-to-end Universal Search Marketing solutions and specializes in Video SEO. Contact our team today and have peace of mind that Google will surely see your business.
