Importance of Page Speed, Its Benefits and How to Improve It

In modern web development, a lot of emphasis is being put on optimizing page speed, which influences a lot of things, from the way code is written, which technology to use, hosting, and so on.

But it's not just about the technological aspect. It also influences SEO ranking, user retention, conversion rate, and ad revenue, all things which today are more important than ever to website owners.

What is Page Speed?

Page speed is basically a measure of how fast a web page loads its content. It's not just a single time measurement; it's more of them, and they are:

• Time to First Byte (TTFB): How long it takes for the page to start loading
• First Contentful Paint (FCP): How long it takes for the user to see the first element of a page (e.g., an image)
• First Input Delay (FID): How long it takes for your site to respond to a user input (e.g., a button click or a keyboard press)
• Onload time: How long it takes to fully load the page content

What are the benefits of Page Speed?

According to a Google Survey, page speed is the single most important factor in user experience, and it has a significant impact on how thoroughly both users and search engines are able to interact with your website.

Users will stay longer, convert more, and buy more on sites with fast page speed. In the same way that a customer would get frustrated waiting for an employee to help them in a physical store, they get equally (if not more) frustrated waiting for content to load and buttons to respond to their input.

Influence on SEO

Search engines crawl more pages, discover more content, and index more of it on sites with fast page speed. It’s a confirmed ranking factor on both desktop and mobile, and Google has stated outright that extremely slow pages are less likely to rank well and they care about page speed, because slow sites provide a poor user experience.

A slow website negatively impacts user experience, which hurts rankings, whereas a fast-loading site keeps users engaged, boosts visibility, and ensures better crawlability and indexing by search engines. 

How does page speed impact ad revenue?

The more quickly a user can access your content, the more likely they are to engage with the content on the page and explore more pages on your site.

While revenue can be impacted by many factors, improving page speed will lead to a better user experience and possibly increased ad revenue.

In platforms like Google Ads, the landing page experience is a key factor for the Quality Score, which influences Ad Rank. A faster page improves this score, leading to better ad placement. 

A high Quality Score from a fast landing page allows you to pay less per click and acquisition, making your advertising budget more efficient. 

How to check your page speed?

The best and most popular tool for this is PageSpeed Insights. It is a free tool that measures a webpage’s performance. 

It can: 

• Check your page load time
• Get performance data
• Get tips for improving your page
• Measure Core Web Vitals (i.e., three key UX metrics)

It's also important to note that it measures on a URL basis, not the whole website at once.

How to improve page speed?

There is plenty of ways to make improvements, and these methods are usually the best place to start, as they address some of the biggest and most common issues that slow your webpages down.

Get a good host

Even if your website is well built and optimised, a slow server is going to make that meaningless. Choosing the best web hosting company is crucial. You may also want to consider where your hosting provider's servers are located.

Storing your files on servers located in the US when most of your customers are in Europe means that their request has to travel long distances before reaching your website files.

Of course, the request is moving incredibly quickly, but the further it has to go, the longer it takes. So it's usually best to have your servers in the same country as your audience, if possible, if not, at least on the same continent.

Static site generation

Platforms such as WordPress are notorious for code bloat, slow plugins, and problems with loading speeds.

However, there are ways that you can work around these issues and still make use of the power and flexibility of the platform - such as static site generation.

Static site generation creates a full version of your website in static HTML, which is separate from your CMS. This means that when a user is accessing your website, they are using the static HTML, rather than having to load the entire CMS and all its code, which makes technologies like NextJS, Gatsby, and others very popular due to the speed they offer.

When you make changes through your CMS, these are then pushed through to the static website, so you get all the benefits of a comprehensive CMS without the bloat or slow loading speed that can come with them.

Reduce image and file sizes

Images are often the biggest offenders when it comes to page speed. One simple change is to make sure you're using responsive images. That means your website isn't wasting time loading a desktop-sized image for your mobile website. 

Reducing the size of files on your website is also really important. There are lots of great image compression tools out there, such as TinyPNG, which will reduce the size of your files and images without losing quality. 

Convert images to WebP

Another way to speed up your image loading speeds is to use WebP format instead of jpg, PNG or GIF. This format is much faster to load without losing any image quality.

Bear in mind that some legacy browsers don't support WebP, so you might have to use a more traditional format as a fallback.

Caching

Caching is when a browser saves a version of your webpage, so that when you go back to it you don't have to reload the entire thing all over again. This can hugely speed up your website and is pretty straightforward to implement.

Custom websites are most often built with this in mind, but there are also server tools or plugins for WordPress that can help with that if your website doesn't have it.

Minifying code

Code bloat or code overhead is often a factor in the speed of your website, so making sure you've minified your code is essential if you're going to have a good page speed.

Of course, this can be much more difficult if you're relying on an off the shelf platform or software, so if you really want to keep your code streamlined, you might want to consider getting a custom website to start with.

Simplify redirects

This is a more common problem on websites that have been up and running for a while - especially if they've been through a couple of different iterations.

When you change your website structure, you often need to put in redirects to ensure people visiting old URLs are still being directed to the appropriate pages. 

But if you've restructured your website several times, it's common to have multiple redirects, loops, or chains. All of these slow your website down as people get moved from URL to URL before reaching their ultimate landing page.

Streamlining your redirects will remove unnecessary steps and make sure you're moving people to an appropriate page faster. It also makes it simpler for Google to crawl your website, so it's a good move for speed and SEO in general.

Content Delivery Network (CDN)

A content delivery network, or CDN, stores a cached version of your website (or elements of your website) on servers in different locations.

That means that instead of a request having to travel thousands of miles to access the files and load a page, they can be recovered quickly from a nearby server.

CDNs are particularly useful if you have a large, complex website with lots of pages and files, or if you have a lot of traffic to your site.

Follow the tips from PageSpeed Insights

When PageSpeed Insights analyzes a page, it shows areas to improve on, these are ways to reduce load times and improve user experience, use of best practices, SEO and accessibility

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This tool leverages lab data from the Google Lighthouse Report to generate an “overall” page speed score for your website on desktop and mobile devices. It also leverages field data from the Chrome User Experience Report to generate scores for your Core Web Vitals and whether or not you are passing that assessment.

Additionally, there are sections on “Diagnostics” and “Opportunities”, which provide recommendations for how you can improve each of these scores.

Something to keep in mind

Page speed is more than just a technical metric - it’s a cornerstone of modern web success. A fast website improves user experience, boosts search rankings, increases conversions, and even enhances ad revenue. On the other hand, a slow website creates frustration, higher bounce rates, and lost opportunities.

The good news is that improving page speed isn’t out of reach. From choosing the right host and optimizing images, to implementing caching and leveraging tools like PageSpeed Insights, there are clear, actionable steps you can take to make your site faster.

At the end of the day, page speed is about respect: respecting your visitors’ time, your search engine visibility, and your own business goals. By prioritizing performance, you create a smoother experience for users and set your website up for long-term growth and success.