Website load speed affects search engine rankings ?

Site speed - how long it takes a web page to load and show up for people in a web browser window - is now one of Google's ranking factors. That means Google takes site speed into account when deciding how high a site should show up in search results. Very slow sites will have a much harder time beating out its competitors.

If visitors have to wait too long for your site to load, they're more likely to leave quickly, and less likely to do what you want them to do - like buy your product or service, contact you for a quote, sign up for your newsletter, or download your e-book.

Check how fast your website loads !

You can test how long it takes your site to load with various tools. One favorite is Pingdom's site speed test, and Google also has the new Google Page Speed Online tool. If you use Google Webmaster Tools, look under "Labs" and click "Site Performance."

What's considered slow?

In my opinion, a website that loads within 2 seconds is doing well. A site that loads in 2 to 4 seconds isn't really fast, but is acceptable if you have a bunch of relative information on the web page.

A website that takes more than 5 seconds or more to load is likely to push potential visitors on to the next web page viewing option which could very well be your competitors, and may be suffer a lower ranking. If your site takes more than 7 seconds to load, you really need to speed it up.

For more information on how to improve your site speed,

read AboutUs's 6 Easy Ways To Improve Your Site Speed, for SEO.

Till the next time,
Anthony,
Your Website Marketing Partner and Friend at ProNetUSA - WebSites and Internet Marketing