The Winning Metric Page Speed There is More to Core Web Vitals

 User Experience & The Right Answer to the Query

The search engines have a difficult task at their hand their prime focus is on returning the best or most matching answer in response to a query. With many contenders for the top rank, it becomes difficult to rank and attract traffic. Thus regular check-up or Audit is imperative in times of mobile-first indexing.

Who is First on SERP? 

Despite priority accorded to the best answer, the delivery matters too. One aspect is the downloading speed of the page that provides the most suitable answers to the query. Most of the negative metrics filter out the website before it could rank at the top in the SERP. But that very website, when it is providing the best answer to a given search term will certainly be called for. The battle on the SERP now hangs tight between the contenders if there are more than two sites with the right solution vying against each other. Thus positive page attributes matter.

How to optimize Page Download Speed?  

Almost everything on board a website impacts the page download speed the extent of the impact may vary hence web developers or designers would follow Agile methodology as it is iterative. Unfortunately, web designing has become highly competitive all over the World and that has brought down the development cost that the agencies charge. This is not good! 

In lieu of less money, most agencies carry out a quickfire design and development job.  Website owners are less literate about the elements on board and their quality. They get a functional website but are ignorant of its ranking capabilities on the search engine result pages. Even when used as a referral, the speed matters, no one whether on the browser or in an email message containing the URL likes a slow download. Irrespective of the nature of the web page it should load within 3 seconds or less. The user experience declines as the downloading time increase.  Some negative impacts may not slow the page but they are definitely responsible for a bad page experience.

Let's make a list of elements that impact negatively;

• Heavy Images
• Animated Videos
• Heavy Infographics 
• Unstable Widgets
• Pop-Ups
• Intruders (Overlays)
• Too many sever queries
• Unused Scripts
•  Outdated Hosting Solutions
•  Inappropriate bandwidth 
• Absence  of server modules (Apache/Nginx
• Not Subscribing to HTTPS secure site
• Malicious codes, Malware, viruses, etc.
• No Security Checks
• On-Page interruptions 
• Unresponsive web page
• Ill-designed link architecture
• Unused WP Plug-Ins 
• Unused Scripts & Dead Codes
• Too many server queries 

For a slow page, the solutions to the problems are not difficult to execute but some irritants such as pop-ups, ads, dialog boxes, or interstitials, are more a matter of policy than that of the technology. 

Google recommends the use of  web.dev page speed insight tool for a site audit as regards the download speed. Besides the diagnostic, the tool also provides recommendations as solutions to the anomalies regarding page performance. You should set your technical/developer team to work on those solutions.  

https://pagespeed.web.dev/

The tool has been recently updated to accord a real-time page experience analysis on Chrome. 

Another tool that I have used and recommend is:

https://gtmetrix.com/

Screen Shot Page Performance

Page Speed Modules when installed optimize your website and are highly recommended they are open source.

https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/module

Website owners should focus on core web vital performance reports and implement the solutions. As mentioned above website security and hosting play an important role. Good hosting solutions should be implementing state-of-the-art technology not only as regards the server, it should also provide security with any outages. Web site owners are least aware of the implication of a poor hosting solution. It is up to web designers to select advanced hosting solutions. This decision should be based not only for search engine optimization, but the website designers also should educate the owners about the trouble-free page experience that their visitors will get.

 

A secure hosting environment will prevent hacking and virus attacks, these attacks that could lead to a penalty.  Encryption of data during transmission provides additional security and this is possible while using SSL or Secure Socket Layer provided by the host. The s you see in form of HTTP is a sign of a site using SSL. 

Hosting Server Location

I always suggest that web designers recommend CDN network as hosting solution. These are cloud-based and secure. They enhance speed by delivering the site to the browser from the nearest location. 

Some of the most popular web hosts are:'

• Go Daddy
• HostGator
• Google Cloud Platform
• Bluehost 
• WPEngine
• Amazon Web Services

Website owners should always host sites on the nearest servers based on the target location. This is a good search engine optimization practice as it prevents tine consuming server hops.   

To the readers, it should be obvious how important the page download speed is for performance on the world wide web. Ask your web designers to implement solutions that will provide quick access and fast download for a better page experience for your clients. 

Read More Page Speed Solutions

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Uday works as an SEO and content writer in a web development company in Mumbai in Maharashatra. Besides digital marketing, he creates content on YouTube. He worked as a naturalist but now his sole focus is on online marketing, writing, and SEO.       

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