As a Real Estate Agent, you strive to create a website that is visually appealing, informative to potential clients, conversion friendly, and ranks high on major search engines. However, having a pretty website is not always enough. Making sure your website loads quickly is equally important, and it is crucial to your overall digital performance. This article will explore why website load-time (speed) is critical for SEO, and how improvements in load-time can significantly impact your search engine rankings.
Why is Speed Important for SEO
Website load-time speed has become incredibly important for SEO over the years. Google and other major search engines use site speed as a ranking factor in their search algorithms. This means that if your website loads slowly, your site may not appear on the first page of search results, which can significantly impact your website traffic and buyer/seller lead generation. To achieve fast page speed, light and well-written codebase is critical as it takes up fewer resources and speeds up page load-times.
Using a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
In addition to well-written code, server response time also plays a critical role in website load-time. A fast server response time lowers the amount of time it takes for browsers to receive the first byte, which means quicker load times. Cloud hosting environments are incredibly useful here, and a Content Delivery Network (CDN) can help to speed up your website by loading pages from a more accessible location. This sounds like a lot to digest to the non-techy readers, but what I recommend is check with your website’s development company to see if they leverage these hosting best practices.
Image Optimization for Speed
Another crucial factor for website speed optimization is image sizing. Large image files can seriously slow down website load times and affect SEO rankings. Optimizing image sizing means that your website loads quicker while still maintaining visual appeal. Google even offers a set of image guidelines to help webmasters improve page speed and also image optimization techniques, which have helped increase search engine ranking by a considerable margin. Here is a great tool to check your website speed by Google: https://pagespeed.web.dev/
Google and many other search engines have been rather transparent in how important site speed is to their algorithms. Using site speed as a ranking factor is just another way these search engines ensure their users are happy with the search experience. The ultimate goal is to provide users with the most relevant search results while also making sure they load quickly and efficiently.
Faster Load Times = More Conversions
Something else to consider with load-times in regards to your real estate website is “conversion rate“… Remember the last time you went to a site that loaded slower than Christmas? I bet you clicked the back button or closed the browser entirely out of pure frustration. Put yourself in those shoes for a moment and make it a goal to deliver an adequate experience to your potential users – it will lead to higher conversion rates, trust me.
Load Time Conclusion
In summary, website load time speed is a critical component of SEO for real estate agents and all businesses online. Optimizing website speed can translate to increased visibility, improved user experience, and ultimately better lead generation. This is how a strong SEO strategy can contribute to the success of your real estate business. So, if you are interested in optimizing load time speed, it’s certainly worth the investment to consider code optimization, server response time, Content Delivery Network (CDN), and image optimization techniques.