To help you enhance your small business website’s speed and SEO efforts, we’ve gathered nine insightful tips from CEOs, SEO Consultants, and Digital Marketing Managers. From switching to Webflow boosted speed and SEO to using the latest PHP version for enhanced website speed, discover the specific actions these professionals have taken and how they’ve impacted their SEO efforts. Here are nine tips for improving website speed for better SEO.
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- Switching to Webflow Boosted Speed and SEO
- Implementing Critical CSS Reduces Inefficiencies
- Compressing Images and Minifying Files for Higher Rankings
- Eliminating Duplicate Content Boosted Site Efficiency
- Lazy-Loading Images Improved the Site Loading Time
- Server and Bandwidth Upgrades Enhanced SEO Rankings
- Content Delivery Network Boosted SEO Performance
- Reducing Unessential Plugins Improved Functionality
- Latest PHP Version Enhanced Website Speed
Switching to Webflow Boosted Speed and SEO
We struggled for months trying to optimize our WordPress site using a variety of WordPress plugins, as there was not one plugin that did everything. We ended up using Fastest Cache, Asset Clean-up Pro, Critical CSS, and Cloudflare for image optimization, but our Core Web Vitals scores were still not great. It occurred to me that perhaps we were on the wrong platform.
So, we switched platforms to Webflow—as it was built to be fast. I appreciate this is the nuclear option and it might not be for everyone.
I’ve got Google Lighthouse reports from October 9, 2020, we scored 9 on Mobile and 26 on Desktop when we were on WordPress! Not great for an SEO software business! Three years later, we’re on Webflow and we now score 90 and 99 respectively.
More importantly, we’ve not regressed since launch, which means we can now concentrate on generating the right kind of SEO traffic that converts better because users love a fast site!
Laurence O’Toole, CEO, Authoritas
Implementing Critical CSS Reduces Inefficiencies
We implemented Critical CSS to boost our small-business website’s speed and SEO. This technical strategy involves extracting and inlining essential CSS for above-the-fold content directly into the HTML.
It reduced the critical rendering path, accelerated page-load times, and improved First Contentful Paint and First Meaningful Paint metrics, crucial for Google’s ranking algorithms. The meticulous process required a deep analysis of our CSS and precise extraction of vital styles to prevent visual discrepancies.
The result was a notable improvement in search engine rankings for key terms, increased organic traffic, decreased bounce rates, and enhanced user engagement and conversion rates.
This initiative highlighted the pivotal connection between technical optimizations, user experience, and SEO performance, emphasizing the necessity of advanced website optimizations for a competitive edge and optimal user experience.
Arthur Valverde, SEO Consultant, Padzup
Compressing Images and Minifying Files for Higher Rankings
I optimized my small business website’s speed by compressing images and minifying JavaScript and CSS files. This reduced page loading times significantly. As a result, my website now ranks higher in search engine results, which has improved our online visibility and increased organic traffic.
Faster websites are favored by search engines because they provide a better user experience. Improved loading times lead to lower bounce rates and higher user engagement, which is essential for SEO. Moreover, my website’s improved speed has positively impacted conversion rates. This is because visitors are more likely to stay and explore our products and services.
Investing in website speed optimization is a practical step for enhancing SEO efforts. This ensures that your small business is easily discoverable by potential customers.
Yogesh Kumar, Digital Marketing Manager, Technource
Eliminating Duplicate Content Boosted Site Efficiency
To enhance our small business website’s speed and overall performance, we identified and eliminated duplicate content across the site. Duplicate content can burden your server, lead to unnecessary crawl by search engines, and potentially confuse search algorithms, causing them to rank a less preferable version of your content.
By removing these redundancies, we not only improved our page-load times but also provided a clearer content structure for search engines. This action resulted in improved crawl efficiency, better user experience, and a noticeable uptick in our organic rankings. Always remember, in SEO, clarity and efficiency often go hand-in-hand.
Jaya Iyer, Marketing Manager, Teranga Digital Marketing LTD
Lazy-Loading Images Improved the Site Loading Time
As a digital marketer, I understand that website speed and SEO are very closely related. I recently implemented lazy-loading for images on the site.
By only loading images when they appear in viewports, page load times are greatly reduced without sacrificing the quality or visibility of images to visitors.
This not only improved the user experience due to quicker pages but also boosted ranking signals by increasing dwell time and reducing the overall bounce rate.
Alex Murray, Search Director, Tilious
Server and Bandwidth Upgrades Enhanced SEO Rankings
The impact of server and bandwidth upgrades on website speed and SEO is significant. One specific action I have taken to enhance my website’s speed is investing in a server and bandwidth upgrade. It ensured that my web pages load smoothly, leading to improved customer satisfaction and increased user engagement. This has had a significant positive effect on my SEO efforts.
With a faster website, users are more likely to stay longer, explore multiple pages, and engage with the content. Consequently, search engines are more likely to rank the website higher in search results, improving its overall SEO performance.
Faster loading times mean that search engine bots can crawl a larger portion of the website in the limited time they allocate to each website. This increased crawlability ensures that search engines can access and index all relevant content on my website, making it more visible and discoverable in search results.
Roy Lam, CEO and Co-Founder, GeniusHub Digital Marketing
Content Delivery Network Boosted SEO Performance
We implemented a content delivery network to drastically reduce website loading times and witnessed a substantial boost in our SEO performance. The CDN works by distributing website content across multiple servers globally, allowing users to access data from a server nearest to their location. This can significantly reduce latency and page load times.
Our website’s speed improved dramatically, leading to several SEO boosts. Firstly, Google’s search algorithm prioritizes fast-loading websites, which contributes to higher search engine rankings. Our improved website speed led to a better user experience, driving lower bounce rates, longer session durations, and better visibility.
Lastly, the faster loading times allowed search engine crawlers to index our website more efficiently, ensuring that our content was more regularly and comprehensively crawled. This improved visibility in search results, driving more organic traffic to our site.
Kevin Miller, Founder, kevinmiller.com
Reducing Unessential Plugins Improved Functionality
I reduced the number of plugins on my website. Over time, I had accumulated several plugins that were not essential. By removing or replacing these with more efficient alternatives, I significantly improved my website’s loading speed.
This had a direct positive impact on my SEO efforts, as faster load times are a key factor in search engine rankings. After making these changes, I noticed an increase in organic search traffic and improved user engagement metrics.
Shoaib Mughal, CEO, Marketix
Latest PHP Version Enhanced Website Speed
Running the latest PHP version on the hosting server can make great improvements to the speed of your website. A site owner whose website is running on PHP version 5.X will find that the same website running on PHP 8.X is much faster.
A fast website improves the user experience, as visitors will be less likely to bounce from your website out of frustration.
Steph Andrusjak, Freelance SEO Consultant, SEO Steph
