Menu

• Dictionary
• Hot Shots

Directory

• Sponsors
• Billing Options
• Content Providers
• Web Hosting
• Traffic Counters
• Website Designers
• Resource Sites

Over the last six or so months I've occasionally talked about the importance of your website's loading speed as a ranking factor.

People first began to think about loading speed as being of some importance as a ranking factor towards the end of last year when Matt Cutts mentioned that Google had added a site's loading speed to the its algorithm. Back then things were a bit vague on how a site's loading speed was measured ... where it was measured from and just how important a ranking factor it was.

Earlier this year things became a little clearer when Google revealed that it measured a site's loading speed by looking at how long it took for the majority of a site's users to get the site to open in their browsers. Google also said that the speed at which a site loaded was a ranking factor but it wasn't one of the most important factors in their algorithm.

Now that may leave you thinking that you don't have to worry too much about a site's loading speed if it's not really going to have a major impact on your search engine rankings. But there's more to loading speed than search engine rankings ... there's a little matter of conversion rates too.

You see, over the years a number of tests have revealed that the longer it takes a site to load the less likely surfers are to stick around and wait to see what you're offering. The back button is always in easy reach for impatient surfers who don't want to waste their time waiting for your sites to appear and they're not slow to use it.

Until recently three seconds was the point where most sites would begin to bleed traffic. If your site hadn't appeared in three seconds then surfers started to leave and look for sites that did load faster than yours.

When you think about it three seconds is really quite a short period of time. After all, the data packets that go to make up your website have to travel half-way round the world to get from your server to the surfer's computer so you would think that three seconds is a reasonable time lapse.

But then you're not the impatient web surfer who wants to get their satisfaction right NOW ... in the blink of an eye ... and that three second period of grace that you once had has now gone.

Recent tests have shown that web surfers are prepared to wait no longer than two seconds these days. If you're site isn't there on their screens in two seconds they're click finger is starting to get twitchy and they're looking for the back button. So after just two seconds they're leaving and your sales are headed south.

Ok so you have to speed up your website but what can you do apart from looking for a host who can deliver your website around the world at something faster than the speed of light?

Well there are a number of tools that you can use to help you increase the loading speed of your website. Some are online and some are Firefox plugins and even if you never want to move from IE to Firefox then those plugins are a very good reason why you should make the move.

But before you even begin to look for those tools there's a very informative video on YouTube that you should watch. It's been produced by Google and it will give you a good introduction to why you need to increase the download speed of your site and it will suggest a few tools as well.

To find the video look for "Site Performance for Webmasters" in the GoogleWebmasterHelp account on YouTube and then sit back and get 12 minutes of great information.

When you've watched that you should then head over to webpagetest.org and start running a few of your websites through their free testing. You'll soon see just how much of your website doesn't load inside those two magical seconds and you'll get some hints on what to do to improve the loading speed.

Sometimes some of those hints can be a little frustrating because some of the suggestions are things that you just can't do but it's still worth looking at them.

Once you've run those tests you should download the Firebug plugin for WordPress and the Page Speed module. You should also download the YSlow plugin and then open up one of your websites in your browser.

Once your website has loaded click on the Firebug link that you'll see down in the bottom bar of your browser, choose the Page Speed tab to analyze your site's performance and then click on the YSlow tab to get even more information.

That information that you will see can be quite scary ... especially when you see the grade that both Page Speed and YSlow give your website. Our flagship site rated a very low D.

And just to make you even more interested in the speed at which your site loads remember what I said about two seconds being the point at which you start to bleed surfers? Well Google wants to see your site load in a lot less time than that ... Google wants to see your site load in around half a second.

Can anyone really achieve a figure like that?