The Need For Speed

Yes, as every SEO Pro knows – speed is critical for getting content (and domains) to rank.

The logic behind fast-loading speed is obvious and reinforced by the fact that Google launched its’ Mobile-First indexing policy in March 2021. More and more people are using Mobile over Desktop, so to “index-first” mobile certainly makes sense.

However, remember this as a general rule:

• B2B = expect traffic to use slightly more desktop devices
• B2C = expect traffic to use slightly more mobile devices

Why?

B2B (Business to Business) traffic suggests professionals seeking services or products relating to their job: meaning that they are likely sitting in an office typing search into a desktop browser.

B2C (Business to Consumer) traffic can be considered as being more “on the move” and this is particularly valid for eCom SEO.

My Website Speed

This personal website has very limited functionality so you’d therefore expect it to be ultra-fast loading, or perhaps better said: it should be fast loading!

Here are my stats for Desktop in late July 2022

And for Mobile in late July 2022

So yes, the site is mega-fast.

The Technology Behind The Speed

From experience the most important things for speed are:

• Solid hosting
• Solid theme
• Compressed images
• CDN & Caching

And do all of those and you’re good.

I host everything using GeneratePress (WordPress) so a bunch of reasons but mostly because the theme offers a huge amount of flexibility using hooks and elements whilst rendering on a tiny CSS framework.

If you need speed and use WordPress then I can’t encourage you enough to use GeneratePress.

What About Hosting?

WPEngine is excellent but a bit of a rip-off. Their support is excellent as is their hosting (and speed) and ability to maintain the site, but for the money, I’d probably advise you to go somewhere else.

I currently (July/August 2022) use SiteGround but that’s really only because I paid for unlimited hosting, something I paid for when I was messing about with creating PBNs.

Linode and/or DigitalOceean are my “go-to” hosting solutions for larger sites. If you find DigitalOcean a pain to configure then I’d always recommend that you use ServerPilot.

Core Web Vitals, Lighthouse & “Speed Metrics”

Take speed and loading times with a pinch of salt.

Always compare yourself with the competition; to do that, here’s a great tool to test your SERP results. Sure, speed does matter but I’d wager that it is only important if your competition is doing a better job than you.

Lighthouse and CWV metrics are all measured by user-generated data taken from Chrome users so expect to see the fruits of your labor show up months afterward because the data takes time to show.

Whilst I am on the subject you should always examine your SERP volatility which will help detect whether the speed is a determining factor with your keyword(s) SERPs. Typically these can change keyword-to-keyword.

Wrapping Up

So, in summary – I guess I’m just showing off!

It’s kinda rare to get such high metrics