Websites should load as quickly as possible on desktop, mobile, and tablets. What is the ideal speed? Anything under 3 seconds is really the answer but people will usually wait 3-6 seconds before clicking out of the link provided.
Having a website that loads slowly is super annoying for the people visiting your website and it makes life harder for your website in terms of website traffic from search engines because Google will not prioritize a slower website.
The best ways to improve your website speed are by focusing on the server resources (upgrade to a better hosting server), and reducing code or animations (even plugins if using WordPress). Keep code to a minimum while having a high-server output.
Google PageSpeed Insights tells you how fast your website is loading on mobile and desktop devices, very helpful for webmasters.
What Happens With Slow Websites?
Not much other than a lack of website traffic, especially websites that have great backlinks and content, the website might be ranking high but the keywords keep dropping because people are not staying on the website, they are bouncing off the website quickly.
These factors signal to search engines to avoid your content, so your products and services are going to suffer in the long-run since it’s now a losing game of keywords and phrases. Usually upgrading the server and making some fixes to the website in the form of coding will make the website load quicker than it was before, let’s get that website traffic back up!
I’ve had plenty of people contact me when they are using WordPress, only to find out that they have big images, animations everywhere, a heavy theme with many options, plugins galore (more than 10 plugins), and the list could pile on.
I personally use WordPress for Long Island Webmaster but I also make sure my server can handle the website along with the traffic, I have to also make sure that my code is very organized, and I have to keep plugins to a minimum when using WordPress, and I generally make sure the website is basic because to me, speed and usability matter more than having NO ONE go on your website.
Your website might look beautiful (usually to you) and you might want to keep it the way it is but then you have to think about how nobody is going on the website in the first place, the website could be attractive but the backend could be a wreck! It can look great but that doesn’t mean people are going on the website, Google will make sure those websites get fewer views because nobody wants to wait for information these days.
Mobile Speed Is Becoming Very Important
People are using their mobile phones to find information like products and services, even educational or entertainment type content. Speed is important, there are millions of companies all competing to take a slice of the pie, and ahead of the curve.
If your website is slow for mobile then you have to make improvements to your website code, you have to make sure your website loads as quickly for mobile just like the desktop version of the website. Usually, the desktop version will load quicker than the mobile version.
And if mobile is important, that means voice search is the next big thing, like when you use Alexa to ask questions or your Google device, voice search is definitely linked to search engines and having your website be the answer in that voice search is VERY IMPORTANT.
My name is Greg and I have 20 years of experience in creating and managing websites. I have 6+ million views collectively on social media platforms like Quora, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Contact me to get your website optimized for search engines.
