This year, Mobile Page Speed will affect Mobile Search Results in a Big Way

Mobile responsiveness has long been identified by experts in search engine optimization as having an increasingly dominant role in where a website ranks. As of July 2018, Google has confirmed that it will be using mobile page speed as a ranking factor in where sites place on its engine.

This is huge news for marketers and sites fixated on high mobile search rankings. Internally called the ‘Speed Update’, this new algorithm will be another bolt in the coffin for those sites that have not yet embraced mobile responsiveness and mobile page speed.

Thankfully, there’s enough lead time for websites to get re-formatted and adapt before the algorithm goes live. Take this opportunity to get an official PageSpeed report, as recommended by Google, and make the needed adjustments to improve mobile speed. Though Google has iterated that this update will only affect the slowest loading mobile sites, if your website is not already mobile responsive, it is likely to fall into the small percentage that may see huge drops in traffic.

Measuring mobile speed has never been as important as it is now. There are many different applications and ways to obtain information on how your website is loading. By acquiring this information, webmasters can utilize techniques to increase page speed on mobile browsers. Since 2010, Google has been pushing page speed as an increasingly powerful ranking factor. At that time, this only applied to desktop searches. Throughout the past two years, more algorithms have been developed focusing strictly on mobile searches. As more consumers shift to mobile browsing, this has meant websites having to modify marketing strategies to appeal to these platforms.

If you’ve not done so already, focusing on mobile-specific marketing and website development is going to be among the primary factors into whether a business thrives or stalls in 2018. A strong mobile site performance equates to more clicks, more fans, and higher profits. Sites who do not make the adjustment are going to fall behind and as the months pass, there should be noticeable differences in website-related revenues.

Naturally, the question may occur among some business owners, “why is speed so important to a website?” Search engines such as Google pride themselves on improving the user experience and being able to offer the most effective, relevant, and high quality search results possible. Speed plays a major influence on user satisfaction and this is why it’s on Google’s radar.

There are many statistics supporting Google’s theories, including a recent company-published report showing that as page load time increases from 1 second to 3 seconds, the probability of losing a visitor increases by 32 percent; as it increases from 1 second to 5 seconds, the likelihood of losing a visitor increases to 90 percent; as loading time increases from 1 second to 10 seconds, the probability of bounce increases by 123 percent. Remember, visitors expect speed when they click and when a website doesn’t deliver speed, a site user is likely to go elsewhere for it.

To learn how to improve mobile speed on your website, get in contact with Unlimited Exposure. As a Toronto-based SEO, SMO, and internet marketing company, we use the latest marketing strategies and techniques to elevate our clients’ businesses to revenues they’ve never seen before.