Thanks to our fast-paced digital world, our attention spans — and patience — are shrinking. When we click on something, we expect it to load almost instantly; if it takes too long, we move on to something else. Because of this behavior, page load time doesn’t just affect user experience — it also directly impacts SEO. 

If you’re looking for ways to improve your SEO, keep reading to learn how load time influences search engine rankings, some common causes of slow loading, and how to monitor and improve your page speed. 

Why Google Cares About Page Load Time

Page load time is exactly what it sounds like: the time it takes for a webpage to fully load. This metric significantly affects the user experience — the faster a page loads, the better the UX, which search engines like Google value. 

Google’s Core Web Vitals measure the user experience by evaluating loading performance, interactivity, and visual stability. These metrics include:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): The amount of time it takes for the largest element on a page to become visible. This should be no more than 2.5 seconds.
• Interaction to Next Paint (INP): How long it takes for the browser to respond to the user’s first interaction with the page. This should be less than 200 milliseconds.
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): Measures the extent of unexpected layout shifts as the page loads.

Page load time affects LCP and FID in particular. The longer it takes for a page to load, the lower these scores will be, corresponding to a worse user experience. 

How Page Speed Affects Search Engine Rankings

Search engines prioritize results that have proven to be relevant, useful, and engaging. Poor page load time affects rankings by:

• Increasing bounce rates: When users abandon slow-loading pages, it signals to the search engines that the site is poor quality. 
• Decreasing dwell time and engagement: You want to keep visitors on your site as long as possible. Slow loading causes users to click away, decreasing overall dwell time and engagement.
• Impacting conversions: Sites with lower conversion rates due to a poor user experience can correlate with a lower perceived site value. 

The bottom line is that when your site takes forever to load, it makes it harder for users to get the information they need or perform the desired actions. If they get frustrated enough, they’ll leave your site entirely, signaling to search engines that your site isn’t as valuable as others.

Common Causes of Slow Page Load Times

Now that you understand the impact of page load time on SEO, let’s go over some common causes of sluggish loading: 

• Large, unoptimized images
• Too many HTTP requests
• A lack of browser caching
• Poor hosting/server response times
• Too many plugins or scripts
• Render-blocking JavaScript and CSS

How to Improve Page Load Time

So, given these common causes of slow loading, how do you fix them?

• Compress and optimize images: At PDM, most of the images we use fit within 1366 x 768 pixels. We’ve also started using the .webp format, which allows for smaller file sizes. 
• Minimize JavaScript, CSS, and HTML: Clean up your code and get rid of anything that’s not necessary.
• Use a content delivery network (CDN): By caching content close to end users, CDNs improve load times. 
• Leverage browser caching: Enable caching on your site to enhance performance on subsequent visits. 
• Enable lazy loading for images and videos: This delays loading of certain elements until the user scrolls to them.
• Choose a reliable hosting provider: Ensure your hosting provider has enough processing power and bandwidth to handle the traffic. 
• Reduce redirects: Whenever possible, eliminate URL redirects. Instead, link to the final URL. 

Tools for Monitoring and Improving Page Speed

If you’re not a web developer, it can be hard to identify why your page load times are suffering and understand how to fix it. Fortunately, there are a number of online tools that can give you guidance. 

Google PageSpeed Insights makes it easy to view Core Web Vitals and get specific optimization  suggestions — plus, it’s completely free! 

There are other paid tools available that offer a wider range of features, some of which offer trial periods or free plans so you can try before you buy. These services include GTmetrix, Pingdom, and WebPageTest.org, among others. 

Get Help from the SEO Experts at Performance Driven Marketing

If you truly want to maximize your SEO and take your site to the next level, you need marketing services from the experts. Our team at Performance Driven Marketing can help you improve page load time, user experience, and conversion rates, optimizing your website’s performance. Contact us today for a free consultation!

A quality website is one of the biggest advertisers of your business and helps customers or clients get a first impression of who they will be working with. All of us turn to the internet for answers, so having a trustworthy website that is visually appealing can help searchers know you. Professional website designs can make or break your business. If you want to increase the number of new customers you see each year, we recommend working with us to create a sleek web design. 

Performance Driven Marketing has in-house graphic designers and web developers who will help give your website a facelift. A well-designed website is crucial to getting your business to the top of search results. Let’s take a look at some of our recently launched websites, which we think show off our expertise. 

Valley Glass

This was a large project for our entire team, including multiple subpages, location-specific content, and custom icons. Our graphic designer took the many shades of blue from the Valley Glass logo and used them to create depth within the webpages. The navy blue and white of the homepage design gives a sleek but inviting look for clients interested in glass projects. 

Our web developers created scroll animations, sliders for insurance providers, and hidden accordions for more content. All of these elements help us to format your website to be read by Google, without visually overwhelming the customers. Separate tabs for windows, doors, and showers will help searchers find exactly what they are looking for, without digging through multiple pages.

Other stand-out elements in the Valley Glass website design include:

• Location section showing each Valley Glass location
• Clear images on each page
• High contrast text and small elements in white and gold

Organizing Solutions Of San Diego

We know that business owners don’t have time to spend fussing over every component of their website, which is why we do all of this work for you. Our website designs are built to be easy to maintain and understand by the common consumer. Building and maintaining the website is something we can take off your plate so a business can focus on completing jobs and serving clients. 

Organizing Solutions of San Diego is another recent addition to our portfolio. This website has fewer animations than Valley Glass, which gives it more of an industrial feel. The top of this website also has a sleek and simple menu, making it easy to navigate, no matter the client. 

Organizing Solutions offers organization options for many different rooms in your home, which is how the menu is split up to better serve their clients. Their business provides closet shelving, shoe storage, garage shelves, workbenches, and overhead storage to help simplify your home. Our team created a structured layout with headings and different colored sections to help guide users through the different services easily.

Another major component of SEO websites is contact information. Phone numbers, email addresses, online quotes, and a physical address should be placed in the top corner of each page on your website. This helps facilitate communication in your business and streamlines lead generation. Our web designers include this contact info very clearly on each website. 

Upper Valley Contracting

This contracting and excavation website includes a bright green that draws your attention in. Our team also uses consistent fonts that won’t overwhelm a user while scrolling through all the content on the website. Quality fonts and appropriate colors are essential for providing information to a potential customer. If a customer feels overwhelmed by font sizes, colors, or the pages are too busy, they may leave your site. 

One page that stands out on the Upper Valley Contracting site is the portfolio page. Our designers added stacked box sections that show a photo of past projects completed by the company. You can then click the ‘read more’ button to see more details about the project and additional photos. Having these additional pages will help clients better visualize the final result. 

Other standout elements on this site include:

• Slanted split sections that give the website a modern feel
• Button animations
• Dotted design around titles, headings, and buttons

St. George Private Investigations

One of our most unique clients is St. George Private Investigations, which offers surveillance, fraud investigations, background checks, and more. The website design features dark gray backgrounds and blue contrasting elements to create a feeling of mystery and confidence. Near the top of the site, there are buckets detailing the services St. George PI offers. These can be clicked and expanded to learn more about each service, but when someone first enters the website, they won’t be overwhelmed with large chunks of content.

This site is a great example of a simpler design for small businesses or those with only a few services. The best way to make your website stand out is to create contrast. The white text against the dark background makes St. George PI’s website easy to read and navigate. 

One standout feature is the large magnifying glass at the top of the website, which moves with the cursor of your mouse. Fun elements like this will make your site memorable and more interactive. Including a few of them can be a stand out feature, but too many can cause your website to slow down significantly.

Optimized Websites From PDM

Our team has been developing B2B and B2C websites since 2008. We have continued to learn about UX design and how to make our website look beautiful without compromising functionality. Website designs should reflect your company’s personality while still providing information about your services. Our web developers and graphic designers are hard at work making our clients’ dreams become a reality. Reach out to us to get started on your new website today!

Keyword stuffing is exactly what it sounds like: an SEO strategy that relies on cramming a target keyword into a piece of online content as many times as possible. While keywords are an integral aspect of SEO, this strategy often does more harm than good. Overusing them can negatively impact your rankings, damage your brand’s credibility, and frustrate users. 

If you’re looking for ways to boost your search engine rankings, keep reading to learn more about why you should avoid keyword stuffing and what to do instead. 

What Is Keyword Stuffing?

First, let’s explore what exactly keyword stuffing is. This strategy involves choosing a search term and repeating it over and over within your content in an attempt to appear higher up on the search engine results page when a user searches for it.

The first type of keyword stuffing is known as visible stuffing, which utilizes unnatural repetition of a keyword. For example, if you were writing a web page about window cleaning, you might say something like, “Our window cleaning company offers the best window cleaning services out of any window cleaning provider that specializes in window cleaning.” 

The other type is known as hidden stuffing, which is a bit more crafty. This practice hides content from viewers in an attempt to manipulate search engines. It can involve white text on a white background, setting the font size or opacity to 0, hiding text behind an image, or positioning text off-screen.

Why Keyword Stuffing No Longer Works

Many people see keyword stuffing — especially hidden stuffing — as a way to “hack” or “game” the system. While early SEO practices favored keyword density, this strategy’s initial success led to widespread abuse. Today, search engine algorithms are much more sophisticated, instead prioritizing search intent, the use of natural language, and the quality and relevance of content. 

Let’s take a closer look at how keyword stuffing can hurt your marketing:

Search Engine Penalties

Google classifies hidden text and keyword stuffing as spam. Websites that participate in spammy or deceptive practices are subject to lower rankings or even de-indexing. For more information about what Google considers to be spam, check out their latest documentation. 

Poor User Experience and Lower Conversion Rates

As you saw in the example above, content written with keyword stuffing sounds unnatural or robotic. If you read content like that on a web page, you would click away, right? This unclear messaging and lack of trustworthiness causes visitors to leave before engaging with your content, increasing bounce rates. 

Brand Reputation Damage

Finally, keyword stuffing can damage your brand’s reputation. It looks spammy and unprofessional, raising red flags for users and reducing your brand’s authority. Even if your business is completely legitimate and provides valuable goods or services, this type of content destroys trust, which can be hard to win back. 

What to Do Instead: Smart Keyword Strategies

So, if keyword stuffing is not allowed, what should you do instead?How do you develop content that’s both SEO- and user-friendly? Here are our expert tips:

• Focus on keyword relevance and user intent. 
• Use synonyms and related terms instead of repeating the same keyword over and over.
• Write for humans first, search engines second. 
• Include keywords naturally and organically. Don’t force it where it doesn’t belong. 
• Optimize meta tags, headers, and image alt text appropriately. Don’t stuff keywords into these places.
• Prioritize quality over quantity when it comes to content. A small amount of high-quality, informative content is much better than a slew of garbage. 

How to Tell If You’re Keyword Stuffing

While most keyword stuffing is intentional, you can sometimes raise search engines’ red flags by accident. The biggest thing to avoid is a high keyword density. To calculate this, take the number of times the keyword appears on the page and divide it by the total word count of the page. If the result is over 2.5 percent, you should remove some of the instances from your content.

Additionally, watch out for unnatural sentence flow. The keywords should be integrated in a way that’s largely unnoticed by the user, creating a seamless reading experience. 

Expert SEO Services by Performance Driven Marketing

If you’re on a mission to boost your website’s rankings, you’ve come to the right place. At Performance Driven Marketing, we specialize in ethical SEO. Our strategies are proven to work effectively and help take your business to the next level. Contact us today for a free consultation to learn more about what we can do for you.