Diagnosing Page Speed Issues

Carrie HillBlizzard Internet Marketingchill@blizzardinternet.com

(888) 840-5893

Webinars to Make You Better, Faster, Smarter & Richer!

Page Speed as a Ranking Factor

Carrie HillBlizzard Internet Marketing, Inc.

888-840-5893chill@blizzardinternet.com

Google has stated they wanted to rank pages based on their relevance and “user-friendliness”

PubCon 2009 in Las Vegas Matt Cutts stated there was serious lobbying within Google to make Page Speed a ranking factor

In April 2010 Google Officially Announced Page Speed was included in the algorithm as a Ranking Factor

WHY make it a Ranking Factor?

Carrie HillBlizzard Internet Marketing, Inc.

888-840-5893chill@blizzardinternet.com

“When we slow our own users down [on Google.com], we see less engagement. Users love fast sites. A faster web is a good thing all around.” Amit Singhal - Google

Google Gives us a set of Web Performance Best Practices – know them, and make sure your webmaster and design company know them

WHY make it a Ranking Factor?

Carrie HillBlizzard Internet Marketing, Inc.

888-840-5893chill@blizzardinternet.com

What Makes Consumers Leave a Website?

Nearly ¼ (24%) of online travel consumers had a negative experience on a travel website during the 2009 peak travel season, Of those consumers 18% cited slow loading problems

Online travel consumers are less tolerant than retail consumers: 53% said they would abandon a travel website after one or two bad experiences, and 17% would book elsewhere after just one

Source: MarketingProfs.com

What Slows Pages Down?

Carrie HillBlizzard Internet Marketing, Inc.

888-840-5893chill@blizzardinternet.com

Images that aren't compressed or have the wrong file format

Iframes that Pull data in from other pages and domains

Quick Search Boxes that have too many elements they need to enter into a query to produce results

Javascript or Tracking Scripts that aren't optimized, or too many tracking scripts on one site

Videos that you host instead of embed

Banner Ads

Certain File Formats such as PDFs

Bad Code/Too Much Code before the on-page elements are seen

Poorly Written Code

Excessive hops with 301 & 302

Redirects

Scaling Images in HTML instead of resizing or cropping it to the size you want

Long Pages

Nested Tables

Not all Load Times are Created Equal

Carrie HillBlizzard Internet Marketing, Inc.

888-840-5893chill@blizzardinternet.com

Most Load Time tools will tell you the speed at various levels of internet service

Remember:

Your office’s Fiber Optic line will load much faster than someone on plain DSL

What Speeds Pages Up?

Carrie HillBlizzard Internet Marketing, Inc.

888-840-5893chill@blizzardinternet.com

Fixing As Many Things as you feasibly can from the last slide

Some elements are necessary – balance providing service and measuring your user with speeding your site for ranking benefit

How Do I Measure Up?

Carrie HillBlizzard Internet Marketing, Inc.

888-840-5893chill@blizzardinternet.com

Use your Google Webmaster Tools Account to Analyze Pages from your site

Plug your pages into WebsiteOptimization.com

Plug your Domain into Pingdom and see how all of your pages load

If you’re really Tech-y – Install Firebug and Page Speed for Firefox

What Can I Do if I’m Not a Webmaster?

Carrie HillBlizzard Internet Marketing, Inc.

888-840-5893chill@blizzardinternet.com

ASK your webmaster what they do to ensure your page load times are optimized

Be aware of the elements on your page that slow things down

Understand that some elements are necessary

Choose your page elements wisely – test new items to see if they make a difference to your users. Is the slowdown from an element worth it if your conversions increase?

Resources to Learn More About Page Speed

Carrie HillBlizzard Internet Marketing, Inc.

888-840-5893chill@blizzardinternet.com

http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html

http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/web-usability/speed-up-download-time.shtml

http://webdesign.about.com/od/speed/a/aa110998.htm

Upcoming Blizzard Webinars

Carrie HillBlizzard Internet Marketing, Inc.

888-840-5893chill@blizzardinternet.com

Managing Your Google AdWords for SuccessThursday, May 13th, 11 AM MDTLearn how to quickly and efficiently manage your Google AdWords campaigns. Get better results by learning how to optimize based on conversion, clicks, impressions, quality scores and cost

Google Analytics 101 for Hotels, Resorts, Inns and Rental ManagersTuesday, May 18th, 11 AM MDTLearn the basics of Google Analytics setup, how to monitor, interpret and track your online ROI

Google Analytics Advanced for Hotels, Resorts, Inns and Rental ManagersThursday, May 27th, 11 AM MDTYou will learn how to use goals, funnel tools and advanced reports for tracking actions that improve ROI

Register Online at Newsletter.BlizzardInternet.com/Webinars/