Search Engine Optimization News Blog

Late last week (somewhat behind schedule), Google Adwords started showing a ‘landing page load time’ on their Keyword Analysis page.

The load times are going to start being used in June to help determine your ‘Quality Score’, so you may wish to check all of your active keywords and ads and make sure your loading time is short and sweet!

Your Quality Score currently depends on a number of factors such as the quality of your landing page, the historical click-through rate of your keywords and ads, and the relevance of your keywords to the ads in their ad groups. These score helps determine your minimum bid for keywords and the positioning of your ads. These items in turn influence your budget and search engine optimization.

Factoring the load speed of your landing page into your Quality Score makes sense. Consumers prefer for the page they are waiting to view to load fairly quickly rather than to take all day. Revamping your landing page for quicker load time will save you from losing customers as they get bored and decide to click another site.

Since page load time is going to impact your Quality Score, take this opportunity to make your website more appealing to customers, and fix anything that might be causing a delay. A short list of things to check on include:

Redirects. These are the top culprits that cause slow load times. Make sure all multi-second mega refreshes are set back to zero to eliminate delay. Try not to make use of excessive multi-redirects, as these can also cost you valuable seconds. To check the speed of your redirects, paste the url of your destination into a browser and time the load of each redirect.

Interstitial pages. These should simply be removed from any page that serves as a landing point for a click-through.

Large page size. Consider compressing overly large pages. Another good technique is to post-load components that will appear below the fold. Delaying these for a second or two will allow your initial screen to pop faster so you don’t lose your customer’s interest.

As the load time of your landing pages starts to be factored in, you may see a change in your Quality Score and / or your minimum CPC bids. By implementing these methods to improve your loading speed you can bring the score back up and your rates back down. The AdWords system will be re-evaluating landing pages on a regular basis, so keep an eye on your Keyword Analysis page for further updates on your status.