Google’s Mobile Index Makes Mobile Page Speed Critical in Higher Rankings and User Experience
July 2018 will be watershed month for website owners as Google will start rewarding faster mobile pages with high rankings and punish laggards.
This finally brings Page Speed of mobile pages to centre stage and celebrates the mobile first policy reinforced further by the upcoming Google Mobile index.
According to Google “Speed Update,” the new signal of Faster Mobile Pages will not differentiate web pages on the basis of any technology. Rather the standards will be kept uniform to all.
Google claims that the urgency to incentivize faster mobile pages will not have a deleterious effect. Those affected will be a minority who are delivering “the slowest experience to users and a small percentage of queries.”
Benefits of High Page Speed
Higher page speed ensures better user experience (UX) unlike low speed that increases bounce rates. Slow-loading pages also impede conversion rates as users will dump slow sites as they will not tolerate slow loading pages.
At the same time, Google says the new reform will not punish any slow webpage deliberately and it can still get a better rank provided there is relevant content.
Google started ranking desktop searches on the basis of page speed in 2010. The top search engine has now advised developers to study Chrome User Experience Report, PageSpeed Insights, and Lighthouse to assessing search performance of their web pages.
High Priority for Mobile Users
In Google’ scheme of things mobile users are up in value as the majority of Google users are using mobile devices including smart phones in searching the web.
The number of mobile searches exceeded desktop users for the first time in 2015. Since then the numbers of mobile users have been rising steadily with an estimated growth rate of nearly 60 percent.
Resource group Statista asserts that 94.4 percent of the mobile search market in the U.S is controlled by Google.
Five Tips to Increase Page Speed
For business owners, this is a golden opportunity to revamp the sites to deliver better user experience so that conversions are up and organic traffic improves.
For augmenting mobile page speed, the following 5 actions can help.
Provide Great Content Experience: To prepare for the mobile index ratings of Google, websites should start delivering the best content experience. Providing top class content will make user satisfied at all stages of the browsing experience.
Speed up Site:Make sure pages are loading very fast, maybe in two seconds. Never test the users’ patience and allow loss of traffic to competitors. Bringing a user to a site from nine other sites is a tough call. The user deserves a better experience so that he is turned into a customer.
Use Fast loading AMP: So far accelerated mobile pages (AMP) have not been made a ranking factor. But that can happen in the immediate future.
Even if AMPs are not being used, there are other options to perk up the speed of web pages. However, turning to AMP will be better as that will load pages faster and increase conversions. Using AMP will also gift higher search engine rankings as it becomes a standard ranking signal. Since 2016, Google has been using faster AMPs for showing detailed previews of mobile search results.
Periodic Test of Mobile-Friendliness:Do conduct periodic tests of Page Speed on web pages to draw insights from Gtmetrix tools. This will ensure the speed of mobile pages high and all the web pages can be optimized to make them mobile friendly.
Set up a Strong Call to Action:Do set up a call to action (CTA) for raising user retention. It can be a download of a brochure or an action that entices a user as soon as he hits the site’s landing page. But make sure the CTA is easy to find.
