There is a lot of talk in the digital marketing and SEO community about download speed – specifically about how your website’s download speed is a ranking signal for Google.
In other words, the faster your website downloads, the better you’ll rank in Google.
How important is page speed from Google’s point of view?
Check out this edition of Google’s SEO Mythbusting for the answer:
Answer: Not very
The speed of your website is definitely important from your user’s point of view – nobody likes waiting for a slow website. There are lots of statistics available, illustrating how your conversion rate can suffer if your website isn’t as fast as it can be.
But in terms of how significant it is to Google? it’s a signal they use, one of hundreds. But not a super-important one.
What’s more important?
…if you’re the fastest website out there, but the continent is not great then it’s not helping you.
Martin Splitt (Developer Advocate, Google)
Content!
Good content on your website is still far more important.
To get the content you don’t want, quickly – it’s probably not what the user’s looking for
Eric Enge (General Manager of Digital, Perficient)
The same video, but I have skipped to the 3-minute mark below if you want to catch this part of the conversation:
In summary
Your website’s speed matters, but it’s one thing among many other things.
From Google’s point of view it’s not even especially high on the list.
Good content on the other hand? That does matter. A lot. Don’t skimp on that aspect of your website and expect good results.