Rumors have been circulating recently that Google is considering including the speed of your website as one of the factors it uses in ranking your pages in its search results.
That’s all speculation at this point, but overnight Google announced a new tool that lets you measure your website’s speed, based on data provided by people using the advanced features in their toolbar.
Perhaps they are gearing up for such a change, perhaps not – but importantly as explained on their blog:
Studies have repeatedly shown that speeding up your site leads to increased user retention and activity, higher revenue and lower costs.
It’s worth considering this the next time you’re thinking about large images and special effects that take longer to load. Put yourself in your visitor’s shoes. “Would I really want to wait for this?”
(Image credit: Photo Monkey)