The purpose of a search engine is to help you find what you are looking for and serve the best content that applies to your needs. Google has been catching flack lately for penalizing websites that take too long to load on mobile devices. Sites that rank high in search results can be deemed “mobile-friendly” by Google if they are designed responsively so that they are easy to navigate on any device.
Why Does Page Speed Matter for Customers?
Page speed is important because it affects the user experience. Slow page speeds will frustrate your visitors and cause them to leave your website to find a site that loads more quickly. However, more people are likely to view your content if you have a fast site than if it’s slow.
How Much Time Do People Spend on Their Mobile Devices?
It seems like everyone these days is using their mobile devices to search the internet. People spend an average of 3 hours a day on their mobile phones, and 67 percent of those people occasionally or often use their mobile phone in place of a computer for browsing the web. Therefore, it’s important for websites to be mobile-friendly so that visitors can find what they’re looking for easily, without having to zoom in and out constantly.
Why Does Speed Matter for SEO?
People often argue that mobile speed doesn’t matter for SEO because people are browsing the web from their desktops, not mobile phones. This is a misconception. In fact, Google has quietly begun to measure and consider site loading speeds on mobile devices in its ranking algorithm, which means that an increase in site speed can help a company’s website show up higher on search engine results pages. This may be one of the most important features when looking at SEO services. Also, considering the fact that half of the total search traffic comes from mobile. Also, Google has identified mobile speed as one of the factors for SERP ranking.
What Are Tools for Checking Mobile Speed?
A good search engine optimization agency will monitor the speed of your site on mobile devices. If it’s too slow, it can negatively impact your site’s page rank. In order to check your site’s mobile speed, you can use one of these tools: Google PageSpeed Insights, Google Mobile-Friendly Test and WebPagetest.
→ Google PageSpeed Insights
Google has a tool called PageSpeed Insights that can be used to see how a site is performing. It rates a site’s speed on mobile and desktop devices and slow, medium or fast networks. This information can help search engine optimization experts tweak their site to make it more responsive, quicker to load and easier for all visitors to use.
→ Think With Google Mobile Speed Test Tool
This tool measures how fast a site can load from a mobile device. Google is pushing for faster loading websites because it knows that people want quick and easy access to information on their phones. Load time is an important factor in search engine optimization because the longer it takes for your site to load, the less likely someone will stay on your site and browse around.
→ WebPageTest
WebpageTest is a great tool for testing the load time of your website. It allows you to compare how your site loads to other sites in the same category. The tool also shows you metrics like bytes per second and page size. If your website is taking a long time to load, it can be frustrating for customers who may give up before they can access the content on your site.
→ GTmetrix
GTmetrix is a tool to test the mobile readiness of a website. It doesn’t just analyze how fast a website loads on mobile devices and looks at the usability and accuracy of all the different text. GTmetrix checks several factors that may impact users on mobile, including font size and color, tap targets, large swipes and auto-scroll.
What Are Ways To Improve Mobile Speed?
→ Minimize Server Response Time
It’s also important to understand that mobile speed may not be the same thing as desktop speed. There are many shades of mobile, and slow speeds are especially frustrating on 2G connections. As such, developers need to consider adapting their sites to handle slow connections better by using simple designs and making sure there is no extra loading like Flash or heavy graphics.
→ Compress and Resize Videos
In order to rank first on Google’s search engine, a company must have videos that are optimized. To do so, remember to compress and resize videos. If needed, you can use compression tools available online.
→ Minimize Redirects for Mobile Speed
When designing for mobile, there are a few key principles to keep in mind. It is important to limit the number of redirects from mobile to desktop pages. Redirects consume more data and time.
→ Carefully Place JS and CSS on your HTML Files
Put JavaScript code at the bottom of your HTML file and CSS code at the top. This is because JavaScript code can slow down page rendering, so if it loads in the background, it will only load when necessary. It also makes sure that the page is rendered on the browser in a readable format before loading external scripts.
→ Turning Browser Cache On
Turning on browser caching ensures that your website loads faster. If you disable it, webpages will load more slowly and the user may become frustrated waiting for pages to load. This slows search engine optimization because it means that people will be leaving your site before their visit is completed.
Mobile speed is a significant factor in SEO. Of course, there are many other factors Google takes into consideration when determining ranking position, but having a site with fast page load times can make a difference.