Why Your Mobile Page Speed Is Wiping Out Your Traffic

While SEO in UK based companies is a must, many still believe that keywords and content are the only true factors. It’s true that these two are important parts of optimisation, but there are a number of other factors that – if not addressed – will completely ruin your SEO UK wide and worldwide efforts.

One of these factors is page speed – in other words, how fast a page on your website loads up and displays to visitors. When Google rolled out the PageSpeed Update just over a year ago, the company’s intent was to have page speed play a key role in determining mobile search results. At the time, Google was keen to tell SEO companies and businesses that it would only affect the worst offenders. However, as we don’t know how and what makes a website ‘too slow’, it’s difficult to know how much of an effect it is having. If you’ve been noticing that your traffic is spiralling downwards but you’ve kept on top of your content, keywords, backlinking and online reviews, then it’s time to consider your page speed. As any UK SEO consultant will tell you, page speed isn’t just for the sake of your Google rankings – it’s for the sake of your visitors too. In this busy world, no one will wait around for a page to load, especially on something as portable and dynamic as a smartphone. So how do you know if your page speed is the problem? And what can you do to sort it out?

The first step is to make use of tools that measure page speed. While Google’s PageSpeed insights tool is a quick and simple way to check things, other tools – such as Lighthouse – can give you better results that are more relevant to you and your visitors. Check your website on both. The next step is how to interpret the data. If you have no idea how to do this, it’s probably worth your while getting the help of a UK SEO agency to do this for you. If you’ve noticed a problem, there are some changes you can make right now. For example, try changing your website images to next-gen formats (such as JPEG XR and JPEG 2000) that offer better compression and quality than their predecessors. If you’ve worked with digital marketers before, check to see if there are any leftover tracking codes as this may be bogging down the responsiveness of your website. Also, try to avoid sliders. They may look nice, but some can be bad for page speed. Try turning them off and see what happens to your results in page speed tracking tools. But if all this sounds too complicated or you haven’t a clue where to start, it may be best to get in touch with a consultancy firm providing SEO in UK and/or global contexts.

There’s more to SEO in UK markets than just keeping your website refreshed with new content and, after Google’s update last year, page speed is now a proven roadblock for businesses that rely on attracting traffic. If you’re not confident about sorting out your desktop or mobile page speed, make sure you approach a small business SEO specialist for help before it’s too late.