Page speed is the amount of time it takes for the content on your web pages to load. This is a crucial aspect of capturing the attention of your audience but it is also taken into consideration by search engines. The longer your page takes to load, the more likely it will be for your rankings to suffer and your visitors will go elsewhere.

If you are unsure of the speed of your pages then you can make use of Google’s Page Speed Insights. This will evaluate the speed of your page using data from CrUX (ChromeUser Experience Report) and considers two vital speed metrics known as First Contentful Paint (FCP) and DOMContentLoaded (DCL).

There are also a number of other tools that you can use to check your page speed including GTMetrix.com and Ping

Fast Page Speed Is Considered a Good SEO Practice

Google considers site speed, which also equates to page speed as one of the signals that its algorithm uses to rank your website. Therefore, Google measures the time to first byte when it relates to page speed. So, when it comes to your page speed, if search engines have to take more time to crawl your pages, it will have a negative impact on the way in which your site is indexed.

As far as user experience goes, page speed is important. When pages take longer to load, it leads to higher bounce rates and a reduced average time spent on a page. When things take longer to load and users decide to go elsewhere, it also has an impact on conversions.

So, how can you improve your page speed?

Use Compression To Reduce File Size

There are a number of software applications out there that can help to reduce the size of your files such as your CSS, Javascript or HTML files that are over 150 bytes in size. Software such as Gzip is a useful tool for this while images can be compressed using software such as photoshop.

Simplify Your Code

Building a website requires coding such as HTML, Javascript or CSS. Sometimes, having too much unnecessary code can reduce the speed of your page and so, removing the likes of spaces, commas and other characters can significantly increase the speed of your pages.

Minimise Redirects

If your website has a number of pages that redirect to other pages then this is all going to result in slower speeds. Therefore, you should consider reducing the number of redirects that your website has.

Make Use Of Browser Caching

When someone visits your site, their browsers will store information that relates to your site such as images and any other files. Their browser will then call on these stored files when they visit your site again, which means that the page will load faster. However, to make sure that you are using your cache to its full potential, you can use a tool such as YSlow to find out if you have an expiration date in place for your cache. You can then set the cache for as long as you want it to remain cached. So, if your website is infrequently updated, then storing the data for some time will help your pages to load quickly when a user returns to your site again.

Page speed is crucial to the user experience and the faster your pages load, the more fondly search engines will look upon the way in which your site is indexed. The ideal is to ensure that you do as much as possible to minimise the load time and with the above suggestions and tools, you should find that you can fine-tune your site so it loads at a speed that works for search engines and your users.