Google has announced that they will begin penalizing websites that fail to meet their new page load times. This means that if your site takes too long to load, you could lose traffic and rankings in search results.
The Importance of Fast Loading Times.
If you haven’t heard yet, Google recently announced that they will be punishing sites with slow loading times. They stated that they would start enforcing these rules by July 2017. In order to avoid being penalized, you need to make sure that your site loads quickly.
How to Check Your Site's Load Time.
There are several ways to check how fast your site loads. One of the easiest ways to see how fast your site loads is through Google Page Speed Insights. This service allows you to test your site speed and gives you suggestions on how to improve it.
Our tool here at Keeperapp.io also uses the Google Page Speed Insights to generate reports and audit your entire site. Whereas Google Page Speed Insights needs you to input and test manually we do this for you and keep track of trends and changes over time. If you want to get started and don’t have an account yet Create one today!
How does bounce rate correlate to page speed?
Both bounce rate and page speed are important metrics to consider when assessing the performance of a website. A high bounce rate can be an indication that users are not finding what they are looking for on a particular page, while a slow page speed can lead to frustration and a poor user experience.
There is a strong correlation between the two metrics – a slow page will often result in a high bounce rate, as users give up waiting for the page to load. Conversely, a fast-loading page will help to keep users engaged, leading to a lower bounce rate. Therefore, it is important to focus on both page speed and bounce rate when looking to improve the user experience on a website.
Why did my PageSpeed Insights score change?
There are a number of possible reasons why your PageSpeed Insights score may have changed. It could be due to new or updated content on your page, changes in how Google interprets your page, or other factors. If you’re concerned about your score, you can always run the PageSpeed Insights tool again to see if there have been any changes. When using our tool here at KeeperApp.io you can check the detailed report to see how you can fix your scores.
When to Fix Load Time.
If your site takes more than 3 seconds to load, you need to fix it. It’s no secret that slow loading pages are one of the biggest reasons people leave a website. In fact, according to StatCounter, nearly half (46%) of visitors abandon a website because of slow performance.
Unfortunately there are many different reasons why the load time scores poorly, this can be due to server configuration, not optimized image sizes, poor programming,…
If you need concrete tips on how to find out what the problem is and fix this (and many other potential issues) take a look at our article on how to improve core web vitals!