A topic that has recently been something everyone wants to talk to. Why is there a sudden interest in the website loading speed? Well, the answer to it is that is because Google says so. Yes, Google is changing a lot of things around the web and Site Speed is something it is consistent with.
To put things in perspective, Google has made the speed of loading the website a crucial reason for the Google Search Ranking and the SEO professionals often find themselves in a tight spot to make the website a mobile-optimized site that renders above-the-fold content in one second or less. But, this speed scenario doesn’t apply to the ad performance of the website but Google has made sure that as Web Marketers an all-around user experience must be considered no matter through which the traffic is driven to the website. Furthermore, since Google is also the decision-maker for Google AdWords – so the slow loading speed can in fact, affect your ads as well.
Page Load Time & AdWords Performance:
It is right in front on your faces, right there in the AdWords help files, one can see the landing page ‘experience’ affects your advertisement’s ability to compete:
To use a combination of automated systems and human evaluation to determine landing page experience on your site. Your ads may show less often if they point to websites that have a poor user experience. Google explains the same in the help files that a good landing page should have:
- Providing relevant, useful and original content.
- Promoting transparency and fostering trustworthiness on the website. (for example: by explaining the products and services before asking the visitors to fill out sharing their own information)
- Making it easy for customers to navigate through the site, including mobile sites
- Encouraging customers to spend time on your site.
Google says that: “Your landing page experience affects not only your Quality Score but also your Ad Rank and advertising costs.”
Specifically, Google says this:
If it takes too long for the website to load when someone clicks on your advertisement, he or she likely to give up and leave the website. This unwelcome behavior can signal to Google in the landing page experience is poor, that can negatively impact the Ad Rank. That’s why you need to make sure that the landing page is speedy.
Of course, even though many of us know that the potential impact that slow website speed can have as it may seem impossible as PPC professionals to get the right people working on the problem. Web developers generally don’t always have a marketing skill set and explaining that they need to change their work is difficult and may fall on deaf ears. In such situations, each moment can count the remedy the problem. Luckily, Google has some handy tools that make it easier to point out what needs to be done to individual pages to improve the load time. Things like the PageSpeed Insights tool and the recommendations in Google Analytics can help them paint the picture.
