How Website Speed Affects Your Gym’s Google Ranking

When talking about web speed there are few important terms that we should explain first.

Page speed(page load time) – is the amount of time that it takes for a web page to load. A page’s loading speed is determined by several different factors, including a site’s server, page file size, and image compression.

Site speed – is average page speed for a sample of pages on a site.

Bounce rate – is the percentage of visits that go to only one page before exiting a site. It is a ratio of visitors who left without doing anything, vs. the total number of visitors.

Now we can see why website speed is important. It makes the first impression about your business. It’s essential to understand that you won’t get a second chance when it comes to user experience. Let’s take a look at how the website speed optimization influences the key factors of website success:

• Conversion
• Visibility
• Usability

Conversion rate is the single most important metric for any website. Conversion rate simply measures what percentage of your websites visitors actually do what you want them to do. What constitutes a successful conversion depends on your business but for most gym owners, it’s how many people book a sales appointment.

Research shows that the faster your page loads, the higher conversion rate it’ll have.

According to the Hubspot research, 1 second delay means 7 percent reduction in conversions.

Visibility. The load time of your website also influences how easily users can find your website. Website speed is one of the factors that Google takes into consideration when ranking sites. A low speed website leads to a poor user experience and Google will penalize you for this in their search results. In early 2018, Google officially announced its Mobile-First approach to website ranking. Essentially, the newly rolled-out Mobile-First ranking system means Google considers the speed and performance of your mobile site to determine your overall ranking. This means that the functionality of mobile platforms now determines the ranking of your desktop site.The goal of this decision is to protect users from the websites that have low performance and aren’t responsive to all devices. According to a variety of insiders and public opinion polls, the majority of mobile internet users abandon a website if it takes longer than 3 seconds to fully render. Failure to meet the 3 second load time will ultimately result in staggering visitor bounce rates and detrimental de-ranking from your targeted niche. Let’s take a look at statistics derived from the 2018 Google Research team:

• 1-3 Second Page Load Time – 32% bounce rate increase
• 1-5 Second Page Load Time – 90% bounce rate increase
• 1-6 Second Page Load Time – 106% bounce rate increase
• 1-10 Second Page Load Time – 123% bounce rate increase

Usability. Website usability, like website page speed, load time, and website responsiveness directly impacts customer loyalty. The better your website performs, the more satisfied a user will be. A great user experience is a way for building a large customer base and a strong brand.

Now when we understand web speed lets see what WodSites and Gym Lead Machine is doing to make your websites as fast as possible.

Optimization of images

Everyone loves eye-catching images and with good reason, that is one of the best ways to improve engagement. The negative side of the image use is that they are usually large files that slow down a website. All the images on our websites are compressed in a way that quality of images is not compromised.

Only important plugins

Plugins are common components of each website. They add specific features suggested by third parties. Unfortunately, the more plugins are installed, the more resources are needed to run them. As a result, the website works slower and also security issues can appear. Because of that we use only the necessary plugins and we ensure that they are kept up to date.

Minimize the number of JavaScript and CSS files

If your website contains a lot of JavaScript and CSS files, it leads to a large number of HTTP requests when your website visitors want to access particular files. These requests are treated individually by the visitor’s browser and slow down the website work. That is why we reduced the number of JavaScript and CSS files to a minimum, so our websites perform better.

Object caching

Caching is the process of storing frequently-accessed data temporarily in a cache so you can reuse it for subsequent requests. When someone lands on your site, and you don’t have caching enabled, their browser sends a request for the page to your server. Your server then processes the request, compiles the page, and then sends it back to the browser. Caching can help ease the load on your server. It stores a copy of each request and then the next time the same request comes it checks the cache and serves it from there. The beauty of caching is that it saves your server from having to do more work than it has to, allowing it to handle more traffic than it otherwise would. It also has the added benefit of delivering your content faster to users.