Site loading speed as one of the ranking factors: What you need to know right now

Google strives to make its search engine the best on the market and for this purpose the company pays special attention to user convenience. In addition to the relevance in relation to the search query, the company has recently taken a course on the expertise and reliability of the content. In addition, the download speed will soon also become one of the fundamental ranking factors for sites promoting on Google.

The update released in June has already introduced several additional ranking factors and in the future the number of factors related to the speed of loading and displaying the site on the user's monitor will only increase. In order not to lose their positions in the search results, sites should already prepare for further changes. To do this, you need to optimize the pages, their loading, and much more. But where to start? What should you pay attention to first and how to speed up the optimization process? We will talk about this further, let's start!

Site loading and its stages: How the site loading looks from the search engine side
Any Internet user sees how the site page loads. First of all, you click on the site address or its title in the search results. After that, the download process begins, which you can observe at different points, depending on the browser you are using. While you are patiently waiting for the download to finish, the search engine processes the site you selected, and eventually displays the page you selected.

A good indicator of site loading is loading faster than in 4 seconds. What is only a moment for you is a whole storehouse of information for the search engine to improve ranking and improve the user experience in the future. But what exactly does the search engine track during the site loading process? In order to prepare for the next Google update, you should familiarize yourself with each stage tracked by the system. This way you will be able to understand what parameters and results can affect the ranking of your site and by influencing them, you will get a better ranking.

When loading a custom-made online store, the Google search engine pays attention to:

• How quickly the user can see that the download has already started.
• After what time the user can get the greatest amount of information to get acquainted with it.
• How much time the user needs to spend in order to get the opportunity to work with the site.
• Do the site elements change their location during loading, and if so, what is the risk that the user accidentally clicks on an element that is not of interest to him?

Each of these points formed the basis for creating a new set of algorithms. Each of the new algorithms will be able to influence the ranking of an online store created to order, which means that you need to properly prepare for the appearance of these algorithms by optimizing your site.

If you are just planning to order the creation of an online store or in your plans to develop a turnkey corporate website – the best solution is to immediately contact specialists. The fact is that the site loading speed is not the only parameter that can affect the ranking. Entrusting the development of an online store to a novice studio, you risk losing the full potential of your Internet resource, embedded in it by your ideas. At the same time, by ordering the creation of an online store from specialists and leaders of this niche, you will additionally secure your Internet resource. In addition, the leaders in the niche of creating online stores and corporate websites to order will provide you with an Internet resource of the highest quality, so it's definitely worth thinking about ordering a website from such a studio. If you have already decided to create an online store on a turnkey basis and to order, but still have not decided on a studio that you are ready to entrust it to-contact the specialists of the Gloss web studio. Web studio Gloss has been developing online stores and creating corporate websites to order for 12 years. Studio specialists are professionals in their field with many years of experience, and in the Gloss portfolio you can make sure of the competence of the studio team.

Entrust the creation of a turnkey online store to specialists, thereby avoiding lengthy edits and get the opportunity to launch promotion immediately after the end of development. Take your place in the chosen niche and start promoting your Internet resource to the top of the search results, together with the specialists of the Gloss web studio.

What algorithms should I focus on at the moment

In June, Google released another update, which already implemented algorithms that monitor different stages of loading sites and their pages. These metrics can already affect the effectiveness of the promotion of a recently created online store, and can also slow down or, on the contrary, speed up the promotion of your online resource.

In order to properly prepare Internet resources for the new update, Google has published all the metrics and information about what exactly they will track in advance. Thus, the company decided to help the owners of Internet resources and created the same conditions for all sites. Given the upcoming changes – we can expect noticeable changes in the search results soon and those who adapt to the new requirements as quickly as possible will get to the top of it.

The new metrics and algorithms will carefully monitor each site. So even if you have just started creating an online store or ordered the development of a corporate website – you have a great opportunity to be one of the first to optimize your Internet resource for new requirements. In order to understand what exactly needs to be optimized, it is worth getting acquainted with the metrics first. It is about metrics that will soon be tracked by the search engine and affect the ranking of your Internet resource that we will talk further.

TTFB

This metric is responsible for the time it takes for the browser to load the first byte of the site selected by the user. This parameter was selected by the search engine to track the quality of the server. If the browser is waiting for a response from the server for more than 600 ms – this leads to an error.

The thing is that users do not like long downloads. The longer the online store you created is loaded – the more likely it is that the user will simply refuse to download it, and will prefer to turn to your competitors. Such a result can significantly affect the performance of your Internet resource, and especially affect the bounce rates.

This indicator currently has no influence on the ranking, however, it can indirectly affect the reaction of search robots to your site. If we take into account that in addition to the bounce rate, site traffic may also decrease, it becomes clear why this metric was chosen by the search giant.

The reason for the long loading of the first byte may be the quality of the server used for your site. Also, the reason for slow loading may be a huge amount of data that your server needs to send to the browser to display the page. In order to influence the situation, you need to make several adjustments to the operation of your server, namely:

Optimization of server logic – the logic of a server application is of great importance and affects the duration of collecting the data necessary for displaying the page. If you use a server structure to configure a server application – it may contain recommendations on exactly how to configure the application.
Optimizing the data request – you can also influence the server response speed by making changes to how your server requests data. You can also switch to faster systems, thereby increasing the response speed and speeding up the loading of your site's page after clicking on its address.
Update the equipment-finally, the last reason for the long loading of an online store created to order may be too outdated equipment. If your server uses old hardware – this may have an impact on the loading speed of your site's pages. In order to avoid such a situation and reduce the risk of a drop in the download speed of your online store for the user, you should think about updating your server equipment.
By resorting to all the above changes, you can affect the speed at which the client's browser receives the first byte of your site. If you plan to achieve success with your site and bring it to the top of the search results – be sure to pay attention to your server equipment.

FCP

This metric tracks the duration between the user's click on the address of your Internet resource in the browser and until the moment of the first display, that is, until your client can see at least something.

In the process of searching for the necessary product, your potential client enters his request into the search form of the system. By clicking search, the user launches a search for the information he needs or a search for sites that own the information he needs. In the process of loading the first page of the search results, the user first sees what he has entered into the search form, and only after that receives the finished result in the form of a list of sites relevant to his search query. The moment when the user received the first image after clicking the search button, that is, his own search and download display – and is the subject of FCP tracking.

You can influence the result of this metric and there are quite a lot of options for how to do this. The list of opportunities to influence the results of FCP is as follows:

• Eliminating resources that can interfere with rendering
• Minimizing CSS
• Removing unnecessary CSS elements
• Pre-connection to the sources necessary for displaying
• Reducing the server response time
• Reducing the number of redirects during the loading of the site page
• Preloading of key queries
• And many others.

Each of these methods can affect the results of FCP and allow your site to load information faster and reduce the amount of time that the client needs to spend in front of the loading screen. Despite the fact that this parameter looks like absolutely uncritical, in fact, FCP affects the loyalty and interest of the client. If the process of loading the main page of an online store created to order takes a lot of time due to the amount of data, and the user does not have the opportunity to distract at least some piece of information from the main page of the site, there is a high probability of refusal on the part of the user to continue waiting for the download. By adjusting the result of this metric and allowing your client to be distracted by gradually emerging information, you can keep the client interested in loading the page they selected and thereby save the chance for the client to buy a product from your catalog.

Given the fact that FCP will soon have a direct impact on the ranking of an Internet resource, the best solution is to think about optimizing the results of this metric right now. So if you have just started developing an online store or are looking for a web studio that you can entrust with creating an online store to order for your future company – take into account the optimization of this parameter. This way you will not only be able to save time, but also protect your Internet resource from losing positions in search results at the moment when new metrics start working.

LCP

This parameter is responsible for the duration of loading the largest element of the page selected by the user. If there is a huge banner with a logo and a list of why you are the best on the main page of your online store, this banner is the largest loading element. The amount of time it will take to load this banner between the client's click on the site header and the banner's immediate appearance in the client's field of view is an indicator of the LCP metric.

Historically, it has always been difficult for developers to track the loading of a site. This parameter is of the greatest importance for the user, as it may affect his motivation to wait for the download to finish. It is important for the client to see that the site is loading, but the longer this process takes – the more information the client needs in order to make a decision about continuing waiting.

To simplify it, in order for a potential client of a newly developed online store to wait for the page to load completely, it is necessary to provide him with the most important and relevant information first. Thus, if discounts from your product catalog are displayed on the main page of your online store or placed on the main banner of the page, it is this banner that should load faster than other elements of the page. By optimizing the loading speed of this banner and allowing the user to remain interested in the result of the download – you can keep the desire to buy goods from your client-thereby increasing the probability of an order on your site.

Due to the fact that the Google search engine is currently striving to provide the maximum level of convenience to its users – it is not surprising why this metric has become one of the most important for the system. With its launch, sites that are not able to provide the most important information to the client in the first place are likely to lose their positions in the search results. This is a great opportunity for online stores that are only being developed to order, since optimizing this parameter for an already created online store site requires much more time and resources than implementing optimization at the online store development stage. So if you just ordered the creation of an online store on a turnkey basis-pay attention to this indicator or familiarize specialists with your own wishes in this regard. This way you can save time and increase the chances of quick success for your future Internet resource.

CLS

This metric tracks how much the template and site elements are shifted during loading and after it ends. This parameter is of great importance for the user experience, and therefore it is not surprising why this metric was included in the list of those planned to be launched in the near future.

Shifting of page elements during its loading is a common phenomenon, which can nevertheless affect the quality of the user experience. If the elements of the main page of your online store move too much during the loading process – there is a great risk that when they are first displayed, the user will click on an element that he is not interested in. As a rule, after such an error, you should close the page of your online store and search for a site that is not subject to such shifts during loading.

Often, the displacement of elements causes users only irritation and that's all. But there are situations when shifting the template at the most unexpected moment for the client can cause real damage. This may be the case with a client of your online store who, having selected a certain product, adds another position to the basket, due to an unexpected shift of the template. The same applies to the choice of the payment method, because the “buy with delivery” and “pay now” buttons can change their location relative to each other if there is an excessively strong shift of the template on the page. Such a situation can lead at least to the fact that your client will need to spend an additional amount of time to exit from a randomly selected page or cancel the purchase of an item that was added to the cart due to a template offset. In the worst case, such a template offset can cost the user a pretty penny if it was about choosing a payment method, and the bank card was added to the user's account.

There are several methods to avoid excessively strong shifting of the template during loading of page elements and after its completion. The list of actions that can help you in this situation is as follows:

Unconditional use of size attributes when using photo and video elements – such a restriction will avoid excessive or unexpected changes in the size of elements or their location. By fixing the boundaries in which images and video elements can move on the page of your site, you can thereby completely avoid template shifts during site loading.
Refusing to use content on top of other content is a common practice on Internet resources with questionable security. Often, such sites place another button above the “pay” or “download” button, calling the user, for example, "close advertising". The fact is that the element that is located above can be absolutely not clickable, which means that in an attempt to close an advertising message, the user may lose his money. Search engines have an extremely negative attitude to such resources, this fact is one of the reasons why this metric was included in the list of metrics of the next update.
Use the transformation animation instead of the properties animation – this way you can minimize the probability of accidental clicking on the part of the client and maintain his loyalty to his resource.
The listed metrics are only a small part of those metrics that are included in the plans of the search giant Google. Despite the fact that this list is not completely complete – even now, looking at these metrics, you can transform your Internet resource and optimize specific places – increase its chances of success. You can also contact the specialists of the Gloss web studio, who will develop a turnkey online store for you, taking into account all the available information regarding new metrics and algorithms. In addition, the developers of the Gloss company together with marketers can optimize your Internet resource and create an advertising campaign that will definitely attract the attention of representatives of your target audience.

If you are interested in increasing the chances of your future site for success in search results, and good indicators in statistics – order the creation of an online store with us. To do this, you only need to call the phone number that is located on the main page of the website of the Gloss web studio-or contact our manager via online chat. An online chat for communication with the company's representatives is available on all pages of the Gloss company's website.

Start developing an online store in 2021 with the analysis of new metrics and requirements for sites, or just entrust it to the specialists of the Glyanec web studio!