I am currently putting some energy into learning more about Ranking and SEO and have sought feedback from several people including Will
I post his reply with his permission as I find it insightful and helpful and hope it might 1.) help others and 2.) spark further debate
Hi Jol,
Don’t take it as gospel, but in summary from my perspective…
Loading speed is one factor Google determines when ranking a website for SEO. Google’s algorithm prioritises websites that load quickly because it enhances user experience.
In terms of the specific scores you mentioned (68% for performance and 78% for best practices), while they provide some indication of the website’s performance, they are not the sole determinants of SEO success. It’s important to consider other factors such as content relevance, mobile-friendliness, backlinks, and overall website usability.
Of note, even Google’s own homepage gets pretty terrible lighthouse page scores!
The quality of Google’s search results have notably changed for the worse, for a lot of us. Google now seems to inject far more sponsored and promoted junk in search results. All while the competition of other emerging search engines and services like ChatGPT are starting to eat into their marketshare.
In other words, don’t throw everything at pleasing Google! Put your site visitors first and consider the many other search engines and machine learning models that might want to index your website.
I think I would propose an alternative question to you. Does the website give an impression of loading quickly and displaying well on different devices for you? In my opinion, the website you have created is perfectly acceptable, after you make the suggested changes to the SAIL subpages.
Of course, feel free to copy this reply to the forums and seek advice from others.
It is possible that future versions of RapidWeaver may provide alternative built methods, tools and things that can enhance loading speeds over and above what themes (like Boutique) can already do.
-Will.
