The impact of web performance on SEO and user experience
Visibility is a fundamental pillar for any organization with a website or online platform. At the heart of this quest lies web performance , an essential element for optimizing both SEO and user experience. Understanding these dynamics allows companies to make informed decisions about digital strategy and help achieve their goals.
Web performance: an essential lever for SEO
The influence of loading speed on positioning in Google
Loading speed is a key concern in SEO, as algorithms carefully scrutinize this criterion to establish ranking in search results.
More than just a technical component, loading speed directly impacts user experience, playing a crucial role in visitor retention and conversion.
Fast loading speed also helps crawlers crawl the site more thoroughly, which can potentially improve crawl rates and the inclusion of new pages in Google’s index. In addition, in a context where mobile search is prevalent, loading speed is even more crucial, as users increasingly use slower internet connections.
Key performance indicators for good visibility
Google also pays close attention to other performance criteria to ensure an optimal user experience. These include:
1. Mobile adaptability
2. Site stability
3. Ease of navigation
These technical criteria are added to other factors that contribute to the overall improvement of the site’s performance, such as content quality, accessibility or security. So many elements to take into account in your SEO strategy.
Thus, web performance is closely linked to a site’s SEO on search engines. By providing a quality user experience, with fast loading times and smooth navigation, a high-performance site meets Google’s user experience criteria. As a result, it is more likely to rank higher in search results, increasing its visibility and reach among the target audience.
User experience at the heart of performance
Loading speed: meeting user expectations
Users are now accustomed to a fast pace and near-instantaneity. As a result, they expect websites and applications to load quickly, without unnecessary delays. With attention spans becoming increasingly shorter, businesses have just seconds to capture users’ interest before they turn away.
Optimal performance means smooth, intuitive navigation and fast loading times. This fluidity creates a pleasant and positive experience, encouraging the user to stay on the site and return later. As such, speed has become a central element in user experience design.
Impact of performance on customer satisfaction
Any drop in performance can quickly make the browsing experience frustrating and unpleasant. These negative interactions have detrimental consequences on the user experience:
Impatience and abandonment: A slow site can frustrate users to the point of leaving it altogether.
High bounce rate: Users may leave a slow site before even exploring all of the content, resulting in a high bounce rate, which is bad for the site’s SEO and branding.
Confusing actions: Adequate visual responsiveness after a user action is essential to indicate to the user that their action has been taken into account and to avoid a double-click, especially during crucial actions such as adding to cart or validating a form.
Performance and conversion
A high-performing website, by providing an optimal user experience, also helps achieve conversion goals. Fast loading times and smooth navigation reduce friction during the purchasing or conversion process, which encourages visitors to take desired actions, such as making a purchase, filling out a form or subscribing to a newsletter. As a result, a high-performing website helps increase conversion rates and maximize ROI.
The Be API experience: working as a team to optimize performance
In our approach to performance, we place particular importance on user experience and how it interacts with conversion goals.
” We are often faced with this dual objective: conversion and performance. In this case, we work as a team (designers, architects, and clients) to make the most appropriate technical choices, and place the cursor in the right place. We ask ourselves the question on each block created with the main objective of the site in mind .”
By providing a superior user experience, a high-performing website reinforces a company’s brand image. Visitors associate smooth navigation and quick responsiveness with increased professionalism and trustworthiness on the part of the company. In this way, a high-performing website helps build user trust in the brand, which can lead to increased loyalty, positive recommendations, and a better perception of the company as a whole. As such, investing in web performance optimization is essential to remain competitive in today’s digital marketplace.
III. Our recommendations for optimizing the performance of your WordPress site
Select themes and extensions optimized for speed
When selecting a theme or plugins for your WordPress site, opt for lightweight themes and well-coded plugins that have the least impact on page load time.
And remember: more extensions does not guarantee less performance ! Often, just one bad extension can significantly slow down the performance of your pages.
Reduce loading time by optimizing images
Images can often be the main cause of long loading times on a WordPress site. To remedy this, use modern image formats like WebP and AVIF which offer better compression without compromising visual quality.
For this, you can opt for turnkey cloud solutions (eg: Cloudinary ) or you can use open source solutions to install on your server like imgProxy for caching images locally, thus avoiding going through a third-party service.
You can also use WordPress’s internal image compression tools like the Imagify plugin , which now supports AVIF, to reduce image file sizes and speed up loading times.
Advanced techniques: cache, compression and protocol for better performance
Using extensions like WP-Rocket or WP Super Cache allows you to store the HTML pages of your site in a static cache and thus reduce the loading time of pages for Internet users consuming the content of this same cache.
Additionally, make sure to enable Gzip compression on your server to reduce file sizes and speed up data transfer between the server and users’ browser.
Finally, make sure that your site is served via a recent HTTP protocol, at least version 2! This provides a very significant performance gain, especially for your mobile users.
Monitor and optimize your site regularly to maintain its performance
Contributing with composition tools like Gutenberg can have a very significant impact on performance.
This is why you should regularly monitor your site’s performance using tools such as CalibreApp to identify technical elements and content that need improvement. CalibreApp offers a detailed view of performance metrics, by combining both laboratory data (pageSpeed) and real data from your users.
By regularly optimizing your site, you can maintain fast loading times and provide an optimal user experience for your visitors.
Conclusion
Web performance is emerging as an essential pillar for any successful online strategy. From loading speed to user experience, every aspect of web performance contributes to strengthening a company’s visibility and credibility in the online marketplace. By investing in optimizing their website performance, businesses can not only improve their search engine rankings, but also build customer loyalty and increase conversion rates. Thus, web performance becomes a powerful catalyst for long-term growth and success in today’s digital world.
