Google has announced that the loading speed of web pages after a search on a mobile device will count as a ranking factor starting July 2018. In this blog, we share the effect of the Google Speed Update and helpful tips for fast mobile web pages.
The new update is called the Google Speed Update and only affects searches from a mobile device. If your web page on mobile loads slowly, it will get a worse ranking. Should your "slow" web page contain very relevant content, you can still straighten out the ranking and still have a better ranking.
That Web page speed counts in the ranking factor is old news; Google has been using speed as a ranking factor for desktop since April 2010. However, mobile has become so popular in recent years that fast mobile pages are now just as important.
The update should improve users' mobile experience. Which certainly works in your favor as well, since more than half of (mobile) visitors leave a page when it takes longer than 3 seconds to load. You want to avoid that, of course.
"The average time it takes to fully load a mobile landing page is 22 seconds, according to a new analysis. Yet 53% of visits are abandoned if a mobile site takes longer than three seconds to load. That's a big problem."
Source: thinkwithgoogle.com
You can easily analyze the performance of your web pages with a free tool like: PageSpeed Insights. After the analysis, you will also get tips to optimize your mobile page.
Another commonly used tool is Pingdom Website Speed Test.
The first step for a fast mobile web page is that the page is at least mobile responsive. After that, these tips can still help make the page fast in addition to being user-friendly:
1. It is best to keep the number of requests under 50;
2. The average charging time should be under 3 seconds;
3. The TTFB; time to first byte should be under 1.3 seconds.
Avoid a low ranking score after the Google Speed Update!
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