I hasten to reflect on the past a little here by pointing out that I mentioned some time ago that the speed with which your site opens (site speed) is measured and can affect your rankings by Google. Well today I get to say what my best friend irritatingly says to me all the time – “I told you so!”
Site Speed Importance
I have included some links below to quote some noted urgent references which confirm my above statement about site opening speed and it’s relevance to rankings.
Here’s a highly relevant piece by Amit Singhal, Google Fellow and Matt Cutts at the webmaster central.
Here’s another reference directly from Matt Cutts (Google) blog.
What can you learn from this and what can you do about it?
There are already complaints about the fairness of this speed index but I hasten to point out that the customer will always reign supreme. If the customer is enjoying themselves surfing or searching the web with sites opening quickly and churning pages quickly, what happens when they come a cross a slow poke website? Disappointment! That’s what. The tendancy is (in general) to get away from this (slow) site because it’s frustrating and could keep me waiting more and more when I could easily find another site that works faster.
You will see in one of the references that content is still more valuable than site speed but it all adds up. Remember that!
If you are in position ten on the first page of Google and your site is slow, there may well be twenty other sites who are much faster with just marginal ranking differences keeping them below your site.
Get a fast host sooner rather than later. If you have to pay a few extra dollars a month, it’s going to be well worth it. Should I dare mention that worn out cliche ‘you get what you pay for?’ Well here’s one person who’s learned that the cliche reflects what is more often the case.
That said, I have included a couple of hosting sites below I’ve had good experiences with. I’ve separated them based on the category in which I use them. I’ve also cleverly disguised my affiliate links so you wouldn’t think I was just a normal person trying to make a living from this exceptional post. 🙂
More seriously though. These are hosting services I use and that’s why they’re on this page for you to check out. I have been down the road of horrible hosting too and that really sucks.
Fast hosting services I use
1. My best all round experience with what I refer to as a general hosting service with great speed and equally important, reliability for the dollar you pay is this one. They also have an SEO hosting service (uses C class servers) but you’ll need to hunt around on their site to find it.
2. This one has a good reputation and is unusually effective with wordpress AND it is probably one of the easiest hosts to use no matter what level you’re at.
3. My favourite. At the time of writing this host is like the new kid on the block but Oh boy …they really know their stuff! This is a really special service and can be useful if you get or expect bursts of traffic or you simply want a smoother operation, speed with flexibility. I’m in the process of sending more of my sites here as I type this because I am so impressed with this mob.
* Reliability in this post refers to up-time.
Here’s an old video where I provide few (very basic) tips on website traffic but it also mentions the importance of site speed. You can play air guitar while you watch and tap your feet a bit… 🙂
Anyway, I hope you can see the light with this article. Site speed IS important. BTW – if you like this article feel free to bookmark it below or if you appreciate the effort, you could leave a comment in the box below the bookmarks. …that would be a nice thing to do 🙂