Transcript
Hey, guys and welcome to another edition of Zupo's SEO Talk & Tea.
Today's conversation is, how to weigh site speed for SEO and ranking purposes. The reason why this is important because site speed is becoming a very important conversation with SEO. So, a lot of people talk about it, a lot of the leads and clients I talk to will bring up site speed as one of the first things they want to discuss because a lot of people know, site speed is an indicator for SEO purposes. So, in today's conversation, I want to talk about where site speed fits in the overall ranking system of SEO. But before we begin, I want to introduce the tea we have today. Today we have a Darjeeling black tea, which is from the company, I believe it's called BLK & Bold. Again, this was a gift from my housemate and this is one of those charitable companies that they give 5% to disadvantaged domestic youth. So, that's pretty cool. And so we're going to have some of their tea today.
Let's go ahead and get started. So, the reason why this conversation is important is because site speed is very important. I've done a lot of work with site speed over the years, and there's been a lot of studies that come out. And the one that rings most clear in my mind is one that Brian Dean of Backlinko made. So, you can probably find this one pretty easily, just Google something like Brian Dean site speed. But when it comes to SEO ranking factors, a lot of the people have started to believe that the faster my site is, the higher my ranking will go. There is truth to that, but only to some scale. I guess the best way to put it is, so let's say if your site was on a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being the fastest and 1 being the slowest, just because you're a 10 does not mean you're going to be number 1, the first on the page on Google, on page one, right. Site speed is treated a little bit differently.
And I think Brian Dean talks about this in his article and his videos. Site speed more so is an inhibitor than it is something that benefits you. So, the best way to put it is, if your site has great content, a lot of links, it will move you to the first page and in site speed if it's strong and it's fast, it will help you maintain and to stay in your first page ranking. If your site's slower, your content links will help you drive to the first page, but your site speed may, might dock you a bit, maybe it's halfway down the page or to the second page. But let's say you have zero content, well not zero content, low content and low links, but really fast site speed, that doesn't mean you're going to get to the first page.
What we mean by an inhibitor, is that you still need to heavily rely on traditional SEO, linking, referring domains, content, internal linking site architecture. And then once you're to the first page, your site speed helps start setting you apart. Now it's not saying that, so you can't think of site speed as something that is the main SEO ranking factor. It more so validates or can hurt you later. If you've done all the SEO things, but your site speed is slower, then it can hurt you. So, in that case, I would ... There is a general site speed that you just want to attain. Off the top of my head, I don't really remember what the site speed was, but I would go look at Brian Dean's video. He talks about the different tests that he done, but what I generally tell my clients is a great way to measure site speed and determine if it's really affecting, is go look at your SEO metrics, go look at the back links, referring domains, content library, right?
Look at that first, compared to your competitors. If you are on the same level or better than your competitors, that's good. But then check the site speed, site speed is one of those things that more so hurts you than benefits you. So, we really only focus heavily on site speed factors. When one, your site speed is just terrible, right? If your site speed is terrible, then we want to address it. Or two, we're noticing that you have better SEO metrics, but all your competitors have less SEO metrics, but their site speed is faster. That might be an indicator that maybe site speed is holding us back. But I will tell you with my own experience, I've worked for many sites where we have slow site speed, but our links and content are so strong that we're still number one, or beating our competitors, right? So, I'd say site speed should not take the gamut or not the gamut, the brunt of your SEO efforts.
It is more beneficial to focus on traditional factors like linking and content. Site speed is something that is important, but should not be the brunt. It should be used as a check to see, is it inhibiting us, rather than is it driving our SEO rankings. So, the topic is not that complex. It's just a kind of misunderstanding, that I like everyone like clear up. Site speed is important, but don't let it be the main focus of your SEO resources. You're not going to get much benefit doing that. But if you guys found that video valuable, please like and subscribe. And I hope to see you guys again soon.
Thanks everybody.