Site Speed vs Google Ranks

Qoins

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Hey Guys, So recently I took on my very first SEO client. I am supposed to increase his rank locally for his packing and moving business. The initial rank was #39 for the main keyword I focused on. I did some directory submissions and on-page optimization like I know best which I believe is decently good after reading so many articles and watching a lot of videos. But the rank is now reduced to #54 and it's been there a while.

I asked around and Since I only did directory submissions on a couple of site no one said it could be the reason for this downfall. Hence it brings me to a conclusion that site Speed is playing an important role here. I have read that speed does play a part in ranking but how good or bad, I have no idea.

So initially the site was hosted on a fast server. Loaded pretty quickly but now It's on a super slow hosting server. And I mean it takes like 10~ seconds for the home page to load completely. Please Advice. Thanks.
 
Site speed does have impact on ranking.

10 secs load time is horrible. Try to improve it.
 
Yes site speed directly impacts on ranking. Get some good website developer and improve the speed.
 
directory submissions
General link directories stopped being a good tactic in the mid 2000s.

The ones that accept your site, likely accept tons of spammy submissions - turning them into bad 'neighborhoods' which can cause a website to be penalized for having a clearly curated backlink profile.

Site speed matters, run it on Google's pagespeed insights and it will give you recommendations to be made to the site like offloading to a CDN or image/media file requests.

Focus on getting more credible backlinks from sites in your client's niche, because directory links are going to cut it - especially if your competitor has real links from niche-specific websites.
 
That speed can cause such ranking drop, I experienced that.
But it won't make your site ranking to the first page.
I think it will be better to focus on contents.

Plss share your website info here.
 
Google ranking for Site speed is now huge factor. Less 3 second is best loading time. Try to achieve it. After You can see site is ranking up surely.
 
As i saw sites with shitty backlink profiles and more shittier site speed ranking good - i think ranking impacts google love.
Some sites has 3s load time, 15 mobile / 60 desktop speed and ranking good on very hard keywords on spam backlinks.

I think TTFB is the ranking factor.
 
Here's what I would do to rank locally:
  • Create a google authority stack for each keyword.
  • Create hundreds of google maps with his target keyword variations with NAP - hit them with tier 2 links.
  • Increase site speed.
  • Put competitors site into ahrefs and steal their keywords.
  • Use press releases every month or so until the site is doing well.
 
Google does take your website speed (e.g Core Web Vitals) into account.

But the biggest downfall is the user experience. No one loves slow websites.

Your users will bounce and leave the page much quicker than it loads.

That I think should be the main motivation to speed your website, not Google rankings
 
I see all these people saying site speed is a huge ranking factor. In the niches I deal in the top sites are score horribly. This is in the US, so I don't know that site speed is actually a factor.
 
Why are you taking on clients if you have no idea what are you doing? Directory submissions...Really? lol
 
So initially the site was hosted on a fast server. Loaded pretty quickly but now It's on a super slow hosting server. And I mean it takes like 10~ seconds for the home page to load completely. Please Advice. Thanks.
These are some of the best resources on the web in regards to WordPress Page Loading Speed Optimization...

https://mythemeshop.com/blog/wordpress-speed-optimization/#intermediatehttps://onlinemediamasters.com/#https://wpspeedmatters.com/https://www.sertmedia.com/blog/https://web.dev/fast/#optimize-your-third-party-resourceshttps://wperrfix.com/category/speed-optimization/https://www.shaytoder.com/blog/https://ulement.com/tutorial/how-to-speed-optimize-wordpress-website/https://woorkup.com/https://daan.dev/wordpress/https://varvy.com/pagespeed/http://pagepipe.com/best-of-pagepipe/https://www.samunderwood.co.uk/blog/site-speed-tips/https://help.gulshankumar.net/search?q=speed category:6https://isotropic.co/?s=Speedhttps://wpspeedguru.com/speed-up-wordpress/
Also, I will leave here my own personal YouTube playlist with videos I´ve bookmarked about the topic for myself.

And, if you´re looking to go beyond free resources, I can´t stress enough how amazing this course is built by one of our very own members @Shree...

[ebook + 49 videos] Crazy Fast WordPress Sites!

Enjoy!
 
Google hates slow sites. I also noticed it. If your site is blazing fast with good content google will automatically favor it.
 
Google hates slow sites.
I think page loading speed goes beyond just being a ranking factor and it has more to do with conversions. Especially, if you´re running an eCommerce site.

I don´t think you will want a checkout page to take 10+ seconds to load, right?
 
Google hates slow sites. I also noticed it. If your site is blazing fast with good content google will automatically favor it.
My sites has turbo speed and quality content 1000+ words - google does not likes it.

Some competitors sites which is running as whitelabels and are copy of original site, even with canonical pointing to original site, zero content (text), spam backlinks, google speed insights - 15 mobile 60 desktop - ranking very good on very high competition keywords.

I made that whitelabel and it started to rank on second day on target kws even without backlinks.

So there is some secret why google likes that shit:
Untitled-1.jpg
 
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If you are only doing directory submissions you will not get your client very far. As you said their rank actually dropped. Make sure you're not linking them to some spammy websites.

10sec loading time is still horrible sot definitely get on them to fix that.
 
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