In the latest edition of You Can Be Found Anywhere, I am found on a remote, but rapid creek in Pennsylvania, talking about the importance of speed for SEO. Not only is there an official Google Page Speed update in July, there has been recent data showing that if your page load speed is over 3 seconds, you are likely not going to rank in the top 15 places in Google.
Page Load Speed Critical to SEO in 2018
The rapidly moving water of a remote stream is the perfect place to point out how speed works for SEO. Not only in Pennsylvania but all over the world. However, with my Pennsylvania upbringing, I am happy to serve clients all over PA. From Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, and on up north from Erie to the Poconos. It should be clear to anyone that has spent some time on the internet that waiting for pages to load is a very quick way to lose visitors. None of us likes to sit and wait and the longer we wait, the more data shows we simply leave and go to another site that can offer the same or similar options. Small businesses need to be mindful of this. Always think about your user. Whether you are worried about ranking in Google or not, you don’t want your users to leave because they are sick of waiting for your pages to load.
Make sure you test your page load speed on a tool like GTMetrix. Remember that each page may have different times, so check a number of them. In general, if you have a speed problem, it will likely be similar throughout your site, but don’t assume if your home page loads quickly that that means that the whole site is fine. It is likely that the deeper pages are serving a lot of search traffic as Google continues to serve more detailed and thorough content as the best “answers” to your customers search queries. Make sure you have great page speed and thorough, unique, and quality content that lets the searcher know that they have landed on the answer to their problem. Then make sure you make it very clear how to hire you. In the end that is the goal!
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