How Important Is Page Speed For SEO?
Any SEO manager or consultant worth their salt will know that page speed is incredibly important for SEO. It’s one of the main components of any SEO campaign looking to improve a website’s effectiveness.
Here, we look at why that’s the case, as well as what else is important for effective SEO. The concepts and considerations discussed here can help anyone asking, “what is an SEO campaign?” SEO does not have to be overly complicated. It just has to be approached logically with dedicated time and attention.
Why Is Page Speed Important For SEO?
SEO can sometimes seem like magic, but it isn’t really. Search engines are only valuable for people conducting searches if they return results that answer those search questions appropriately. That means that if Google or one of its competitors returns a result where the page is painfully slow to load, users may begin to look at other search engines, and Google’s reputation as the best search engine would start to slide.
Google looks at the bounce rate of a website (the number of times a person clicks on a page and almost immediately goes elsewhere) to judge its suitability to answer a query. If that bounce rate is too high, Google will begin to move the page down in the rankings. And a page that is slow to load is likely to have a much higher bounce rate.
What Else Is Important For SEO?
You might be wondering “what is an SEO manager?” if you’re considering creating such a position at your firm, or you might want to be one. A large part of this role includes knowing what else is important for SEO, including:
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is the act of rectifying any fundamental issues that stop a site from performing as well as it could in the rankings of search results. A technical SEO audit will look at issues like page speed, load times, whether your website is mobile-friendly, and if there are any crawling errors within the crawl report. It may also look at meta descriptions and run a check for duplicate content on the site.
Keywords And Content
Keywords and how they are woven into each piece of content is essential for any successful SEO campaign. As keywords are what Google and its competitors search for on a site, they must be present on a website’s pages. Google will look for this to ascertain how relevant a site’s content is to answer a search query.
However, they should be used in a natural way. Google has become savvy to techniques like keyword stuffing, which often makes the content barely readable. So it’s important to make sure your content provides value for readers and is of at least decent quality.
On-Page Optimization
On-page optimization involves building internal links and structuring a page so search engines can more easily read it. Headings are one of the ways that a page can be optimized by breaking up the text and providing an easy-to-read line that search engines can crawl for keywords. Meta titles and meta tags are also key areas to optimize when you want to improve on-page optimization.
Trust And Authority
Google and other search engines want to promote trustworthy sites. They also want to promote sites that are the best answer for a query. Usually, when a site or page is the best answer for a query, it is known as an authoritative site. The authority metric of a site is calculated by looking at the inbound links. Inbound links are one of the trickier concepts to achieve when it comes to an SEO strategy, so if you don’t have much experience in that field, you can look at outsourcing the process.
Page Speed And SEO
A well-working and optimized website is a vital part of any business. Furthermore, understanding all the other aspects that affect SEO is essential for all business owners who want to employ SEO managers, consultants, and agencies so they understand what’s required in order for the job to be done effectively.