SEO professionals get the ump when they see articles talking about website speed. They believe that website owners think that a faster website will resolve all their website issues, and they'll immediately rank higher in the search engines.
And yes, it does seem that way when you read those types of article.
SEO is made up of a few elements, there's the on-page SEO, the off-page SEO, the right audience and the user experience.
So the SEO pros are right, there's more to better rankings than a faster site. But speed does play its part around user experience. People, website visitors, in particular, are not patient. The longer it takes your website to load the more likely they are to click away.
With this in mind you need to optimise your images, videos and audios so that your site loads faster.
1. Optimise your videos
Embedding a video into a page or post still uses up resources. Not as many as uploading your video content directly into your website, but it still slows things down. Video content can be compressed to make the files smaller as well as delivered via a CDN. Check that your sitemap includes video content too.
2. Optimise Your Images
Optimising your images is more than adding ALT tags to your images when you upload them. Images also need to be compressed, sized properly, branded and then uploaded. Use an image sitemap tool as well.
3. Optimise Your Audio
Compression is your friend for audio too! Remember people will watch an imperfect video, they will not listen to imperfect audio. I know people will convince you that everyone wants retina-perfect images or the world will end, but the truth is no one, and I mean no one will listen to audio that isn't good. There will be a 3-second fumble to make the audio sound better and then the tab will be closed. Bad audio hurts more than your ears.
Pros & Cons of Speeding Up Your Website
Pros:
- Your user experience will be better and people will stay longer on your site
- You'll gain more subscribers and sales
Cons:
- Can be technical in places, or boring
Conclusion:
Speed isn't the cure-all for everything SEO, but it is great for a better user experience.
