Google recently announced that page speed will be the ranking signal for mobile search starting in July.

This is something that most SEO pros have suspected for quite some time, but we are pleased that it has now been confirmed as Google has also begun rolling out a mobile index that directly puts mobile first.

Page speed is incredibly important to the user experience.

Since Google launched the mobile index and adopted the mobile approach, devoting the core index to mobile, I think page speed can become more of a medium signal strength than a light signal like HTTPs.

If you provide users with good content and user experience and they can find what they are looking for – and the content experience meets their intentions across all devices and platforms and delivers value – why not?

Get ready for the mobile index by making sure you provide the right content and have high-quality content that satisfies the user’s intentions.

The path to purchase is not linear. It’s fragmented.

You must have content that satisfies all stages of the user’s journey.

Make sure your pages load as quickly as possible, preferably within one to two seconds.

Users aren’t going to sit around and wait for your page to load to find a solution to their problem or find what they’re looking for.

There are (at least) nine other sites that are trying to get a button and so your site needs to load as fast as possible to stay competitive.

While AMP is not a rating factor right now, it could be in the future.

There are other ways to speed up your site if you don’t want to use AMP.

However, you should consider using AMP because these pages load very quickly – and you could potentially increase your conversions and see improved search engine rankings once AMP becomes a ranking signal.

Use the PageSpeed Insights tool or Gtmetrix tools to start looking at the speed of your mobile page and make sure all your pages are mobile.

While it falls out of SEO a bit, you also want to make sure you show users a strong call to action right when they hit your site.

If you intend to download a brochure or take other action when they arrive on your landing page, make sure the user thinks the CTA is pretty fast.

With Google having many different signals for mobile devices, it would be wise to test the impact of mobile page speed on search engine visibility and performance, but this can be extremely difficult to do. I have outlined potential test solutions below.

In an ideal world – and in a vacuum ecosystem – you could probably create some logical a / B test by creating two identical pages on the same domain.

With the same template, you would create unique content focused on very similar keywords.

For example, the first page will be optimized for “yellow long-range drones” and the other page will be optimized for”blue long-range drones”.

Wait until they start ranking in, say, 75-ish positions. Then add some heavy scripts to one of the pages and measure the results.

By the time you’re done with this test, Google will have released several new mobile index updates that could mess up your test data. ☺

Another scenario might be probably taking some page that ranks both in the top five and Stripping the page of all but some very light elements such as multiple images and content – no CSS style, no unnecessary fancy JavaScript, etc.

Better yet, take this page while it is within striking distance, somewhere between 11-19 and watch it rank up to page 1 or not – and whether you get more conversions.

With the launch of the mobile index and Google now stating that speed will be a factor for mobile it’s time to start taking this seriously.

This should help improve the user experience, increase conversions, keep users on your site longer, and drive more organic traffic.

Additional page speed resources:

Featured Image Credit: icemanphotos / Shutterstock

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Winston Burton is an SEO and digital marketing expert with over 12 years of experience. Winston is currently the Vice-President … (Read the full bio)

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