I've been chatting with a developer about website performance, and I ran a PageSpeed check on both his site and his clients' sites. His performance scores hover between 55-65 out of 100, while accessibility scores are around 80 and best practices sit between 85-95. I've heard that Google looks at core web vitals and user bounce rates, which supposedly impact search engine visibility, especially since I'm planning to run Google Ads. Is all of this true? Should I aim for a performance score of at least 80 for my website? I noticed that many of my competitors, who are major franchises and multimillion-dollar businesses, also have low performance scores, but they still do well with SEO.
5 Answers
Absolutely, performance matters! Google definitely prefers sites that load quickly. Think about it—if a site takes more than 3 seconds to load, most users will just leave. It’s important for retaining visitors and keeping your bounce rate low.
Page speed does play a role in rankings, but it’s not the end-all. If your site loads in over 3 seconds, you’re losing traffic for sure. Aim for better performance metrics, not just for scores, but to enhance user experience and ultimately boost conversions.
While performance is a factor, it's all about user experience in the end. Google tracks how users interact with websites more than just pure speed scores. If your site feels fast and has engaging content, you're probably doing okay.
There are tons of ranking factors, and while performance is one, it's just a piece of a much larger pie. User engagement, content quality, and backlinks weigh in a lot heavier. A perfect score might not drastically impact ranking, but it benefits overall user experience.
Lighthouse metrics can be hit or miss. Just ensure that your pages aren't showing red signals in user data—yellow is typically fine. Time to First Byte does matter, so investing in a good hosting setup and CDN can make a difference.
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