Table of contents
Speed is a ranking signalSpeed is a conversion signalWhat makes sites slowHow to get fasterSpeed is a ranking signal
Google has used page experience and Core Web Vitals in ranking for years, and mobile-first indexing means your slow mobile experience hurts your desktop rankings too.
Speed also affects crawl budget — faster sites get crawled more efficiently, helping new content get indexed sooner.
Speed is a conversion signal
Every extra second of load time reduces conversions. Pages loading in under two seconds convert measurably better than those at four seconds.
On mobile, where most traffic lives now, patience is even thinner — slow sites get abandoned before they finish loading.
What makes sites slow
The usual culprits: unoptimized images, render-blocking scripts, too many plugins, and no caching or CDN.
The good news: most speed problems have well-known fixes, and a focused optimization pass can cut load times in half.
How to get faster
Optimize and lazy-load images, minify assets, enable caching and a CDN, and audit third-party scripts. Then measure with Lighthouse and PageSpeed Insights.
Aim for a Lighthouse performance score of 90+ and Core Web Vitals in the green — it’s achievable for almost any site.
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