Improving Load Time for SEO

How fast is your website? If you aren’t sure, then it’s time to take a look at how quickly your pages are loading. Load time is a fairly new ranking factor in the search engine algorithm, which rewards higher rankings to websites that load faster. According to Google, the reasoning behind this signal is that faster websites provide a better user experience for the user and it reduces operating costs as well.  There are several free tools available that you can use to evaluate the speed of your website including Page Speed, YSlow and WebPagetest.  Use these tools to assess your site’s load time and analyze any performance issues. Then improve the load time of your website by optimizing different elements on the page. (e.g. images or HTTP requests) For more information on increasing site performance, watch our site performance video on VerndaleTV.