Your April 2019 Search Engine Bytes Digest
 by Kristi Hagen

How important is site speed for WordPress sites?

  • wordpress_speed_tips.jpgMy question is about site speed issues and WordPress themes. Ever since the rollout of Google's mobile-first indexing, site speed has been a pesky issue on a number of levels.

    My sites are connected to one or more SEO platforms. When using quick-hit tools like Sitebulb, I get site speed results that are all over the place. This is driving developers crazy! ...and I'm hoping the answers to these following questions might help clarify how to proceed in regard to these issues:

    1. Mobile vs. Desktop - do we need to worry about speed timings for both, or should we just focus on mobile?
    2. What is a good site speed? Do we need to get them below 1s?
    3. I keep running into sites built on bloated WordPress Themes. The developers are having fits every time I deliver a report full of site speed issues and they all say they can't fix them. Do you have any recommendations of a good WordPress Theme?
    4. I have sites that have dropped considerably for some key converting terms and the only issues I'm finding are related to site speed. Is site speed that big of a ranking factor or am I just getting distracted by it?

    Any guidance on this would be greatly appreciated.

Answers:

  1. Mobile vs. Desktop? Focus on Mobile, that's what Google is looking at.
  2. A good site speed? We wouldn't be concerned if a site loads in around 7-10 seconds on 3g Mobile. That would be quite common on a moderately optimized WP site. Of course, faster is better – but that's more of a UX / Conversion situation so you won't see a ranking difference.
  3. Fast loading WP Themes? We haven't researched fast loading WP themes for a while, the last time being this article, although it's safe to say there are more available now than before. Even so, when you add the features and plugins most clients expect and then add, say, W...

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