One of the most important SEO metrics is the page speed of a website, especially the mobile version. Individual web pages and entire websites with slow loading times on average are ranked lower by search engines such as Google and Bing. The reason: users have no patience. Users immediately abandon pages that take too long to load.
In the Google Search Console, you can see at a glance whether and on which pages there are problems with loading times. Under "Core Web Vitals", problems with individual pages that lead to poor loading times are displayed. Various tools are used in digital marketing to analyze these problems in more detail. The "PageSpeed Insights" page from Google (https://pagespeed.web.dev/) offers an initial insight. It lists various aspects that have a negative impact on the loading time of a page.
However, it is important to note that Google does not rely on this tool, but on real-time data from users. There are situations where a page performs well in PageSpeed Insights but still has poor loading times. This requires technical knowledge, some of which falls into the IT field. However, some problems can be easily fixed or (in the case of WordPress) improved with plugins.
The most common causes of slow loading times include:
- Images that are too large and insufficiently compressed
- Slow servers
- Missing or poor caching or missing CDN
- Elaborate design
- Poorly integrated cookie banners
- Layout shifts during loading
- Too large and/or too many CSS files
- Too many (and often unnecessary) JavaScripts
- Too many and slow plugins (on WordPress)
- Error in the programming of the page
Although these aspects of a website originally fall into the IT field, they play a crucial role in digital marketing as they strongly influence SEO performance. Close cooperation between IT and digital marketing is therefore essential. Since the design of a website can also have a strong influence on loading times, there should be a continuous exchange between web designers and SEO managers.
Author: Felix C. Richter, August 26, 2024.