Every time Google comes up with some jaw-dropping yet surprising updates that impact your SEO in one way or another. Google recently announced that page speed will be a ranking sign for mobile search starting in July. This is something that mainly SEO professionals have suspected for quite some time, but we are glad that it is now confirmed, as Google has also started to implement the mobile index, which puts mobile devices directly first.

Page speed is extremely important to the user experience. Pages that take a long time to load are likely to have higher bounce rates. Slow loading pages can also unconstructively affect your conversion rates because end users won’t wait without complaining for pages to load.

But why else should you care?

Now the question that arises here is why Google launched the mobile index and embraced a mobile-centric move by dedicating a major index for mobile devices, I think page speed could become more of a mid-level signal than in a trivial token like HTTP.

If you provide users with high-quality content and user experience and they can discover what they are looking for, and the happy experience fulfills their intention across devices and platforms and offers value, why not?

Here are some things you can do to prepare

You need to prepare for the mobile index by making sure you provide the right content experience and have high-quality content that meets the consumer’s intent.

Make sure your pages load as quickly as possible, preferably in a second or two. It is your sole responsibility to check your page speed and speed up the loading time to find a solution to your problem or find something they are looking for. In your competition there are certainly other sites that are other sites that are trying to get the click and therefore your site needs to load as fast as possible to remain reasonable.

Besides this to make your website high mobile speed is important as it will affect your SEO and ranking. While AMP is not a ranking factor at the moment, it could be in perspective. There are other behaviors to speed up your website if you don’t want to use AMP. However, you have to believe in using AMP because these pages load tremendously fast, and you could potentially increase your conversions and see improved search engine rankings once AMP becomes a ranking signal.

Closing section

Another situation could almost certainly be to take some page that ranks well in the highest rankings and strip it of all but a few very light elements such as a small amount of images and content – no CSS styling, no unnecessary fancy JavaScript, etc.

With the release of this mobile update and Google’s indexing now indicating that speed will be an aspect of mobile devices, it’s time to start taking this honestly.

Applying all of these factors is sure to help improve your user experience, drive conversions, keep users on your site longer, and drive more organic traffic.