Imagine a San Diego consumer attempting to enter a retail shop in the Gaslamp Quarter. He pulls the handle on the front door, but it doesn’t budge. He waits a few seconds and tries again. After a third failed attempt, he gets frustrated and leaves. But he does not go home. He walks into a competitor’s storefront just a few steps away.
This very scenario plays out in the digital world thousands of times every day. It plays out when local consumers use their smartphones to find local products and services. But instead of pulling on physical door handles, they attempt to load websites suggested by search results.
Here’s the deal: if a website takes more than a second or two to load, the typical consumer will hit the back button and try another link. Those of us in the digital marketing and SEO space call this ‘pogo-sticking’. Google measures it with something they refer to as ‘bounce rate’. Either way, it is not good.
Enter Core Web Vitals
A company offering San Diego SEO services will typically use a tool like Google Core Web Vitals to score website health. A big part of that score is page speed. Visual stability is something else an SEO provider would be concerned about. The information gleaned from Core Web Vitals translates into three poignant questions:
1. How fast does the main content load?
Google refers to this as ‘largest contentful paint’. It measures things like how long it takes for a website’s main title and header image to appear.
2. How quickly can a user tap a button to navigate?
Referenced as ‘First Input Delay’ or ‘Interaction to Next Paint’ by Google, this measures what happens when a user taps a button. Does tapping lead to an instant action or are there frustrating delays?
3. Do pages jump around while loading?
Google references page stability as ‘Cumulative Layout Shift’. Both users and Google expect to see stable text blocks, buttons, and images that do not keep moving and shifting until the page completes loading. An unstable page leads to inadvertently tapping the wrong buttons or links. It’s a good way to encourage user bounce.
The Solution Is Clean Code
While stability is important, both Google and mobile searchers still prioritize speed. Maximizing speed is all about clean page design. Whether a business owner builds his own site with WordPress or hires a San Diego SEO services provider, nothing impresses Google algorithms more than clean code.
San Diego’s Pixsan suggests avoiding bloated code and excessive tracking scripts. They also warn against using large volumes of massive, uncompressed images. WordPress-using business owners tend not to know these things and WordPress doesn’t go out of its way to inform them. So a business owner with only limited web development and SEO experience really should think about bringing in an expert or hiring a service provider.
As far as the code itself is concerned, anything that slows down page loading is anathema. For example, website owners should stay away from bloated themes. Keep things visually simple and easy to navigate. The underlying code will be attractive to Google. Likewise, uncompressed media files only increase load times. Avoid them.
Site speed is a prioritized ranking factor for both organic desktop and mobile search. But it is more important in the mobile arena when users are looking for local products and services using their phones. If you run a business targeting primarily local customers, make sure your page loads quickly and remains stable. Otherwise, you are pretty much locking the door and encouraging your customers to go elsewhere.