A simple and direct answer to “does mobile page speed affect SEO?” is, yes, your mobile page speed can impact your SEO, and thus, your Google Ranking as well. However, this is something not many online marketers and business owners are aware of.
In this blog post, we’ll be talking about what mobile page speed is, why it is so important to SEO strategies, and how it is considered to be a crucial ranking factor.
What Is Mobile Page Speed?
Mobile page speed is an evaluation of how quickly your content loads on your page. It’s often described as “page load time,” which means the total amount of time your page takes to display all of the content on a particular page. However, many times, the speed of a page is different on the desktop or laptop than the mobile phone. The real success is when the user is able to view all the content in seconds on all electronic devices, be it a PC or a smartphone.
Why Does Mobile Page Speed Matter?
Page speed is a major concern for users who expect quick page load time. And honestly, in this fast-paced world, there’s hardly anyone who does not prefer accelerated performance by a mobile page. Faster pages offer an enhanced mobile user experience.
Whether you are on the go or crunched on time, a speedy mobile page will load all the content and give you the required information in a matter of seconds. This is what we call efficiency and effectiveness. As a result, the mobile user will feel happy, satisfied, and positive toward your business.
Let’s not forget to talk about the elephant in the room – does mobile page speed affect SEO? It’s important to note that speed influences conversion rate. According to a recent survey, it was concluded that users expect speed when surfing the internet. With elevated page speed, the conversion rate is greater. Slow page speed eliminates the element of trust among the users. They leave your page with a sour feeling since their quest of checking out your page and its content seems to take forever to be fulfilled. Today, users are all about “instant gratification.” When your page fails to provide them that, it immediately leads to a low conversion rate.
Mobile page speed is crucial for search engine optimisation as well. Back in 2017, Google announced that mobile page speed will be considered as an important ranking factor as it can influence the quality of user experience when consuming the content. And for Google, a great user experience is everything. So, according to Google’s Algorithm Speed Update, Google doesn’t rank pages that have slow loading speed.
How Can You Improve Mobile Page Speed?
Struggling to accelerate your mobile page speed? Don’t worry! Here are some tips to sharply increase your mobile page speed:
- Select Fast Web Hosting
An unreliable web hosting can put your mobile page speed at a disadvantage, so make it a point to choose the top web host server for prompt load time.
When selecting a specific web host server, make sure it’s closer to your target audience, or else, your loading time will lag.
- Steer Clear from Redirects
Redirects take page visitors to another site which is problematic on mobile phones because redirects can eat up valuable milliseconds, resulting in a slow page load. This is why you should minimise, nay, avoid adding redirects into your page to enhance mobile page speed.
- Keep Your Page Simple and Straightforward
Out of thrill and excitement, it’s easy to get caught up in creating the most extraordinary site out there. But in doing so, you may end up affecting the user experience. How? When the page consists of heavy features and designs, it takes more and more time to load, thus, increasing your page load time. Therefore, it couldn’t be smarter of you to keep your page simple and lightweight.
- Prioritise Top Content the Most
Content that mobile users will see first should be prioritised more than the content they will see later. Considering this, content at the top of the page should load more quickly before content at the bottom of the page. In this way, users won’t be disappointed if the page isn’t fully loaded. In fact, they won’t even notice if the bottom content isn’t loaded.
How to Check Your Mobile Page Speed?
Thankfully, there are many online tools through which you can analyse your mobile page speed before users can experience it.
One of the best tools is Google’s site speed checker. It checks your mobile page or site by using a standard 3G connection. Another tool to test your page speed is Google Chrome’s “Inspect Element”. Using this feature, you can even check how long your page takes to load from a mid-tier to low-end mobile phone.
End Note
As it is – your mobile’s page speed plays a significant role in your site visitor’s overall experience. You simply can’t just focus on optimising your desktop site and stop there. If your mobile page is taking more than “three seconds” to load, you need to work on it. Keep in mind that a small delay of just one second in page load time can lower your conversion rate drastically. More than that, Google won’t recognise your page in its ranking, which will be a hit to your SEO.
Focus on increasing your mobile page speed as it can make or break your SEO initiative. If you aren’t sure of how to go about it, get in touch with TopRankings – Australia’s well-recognised SEO agency since 2007. Fill out our enquiry form or send us a message, and we’ll get back to you at your earliest.
