For a while now, certainly the last couple of years, search optimisation professionals have been trying to measure and heavily debating the importance of webpage load speed as a ranking factor.

Well, 5 days ago Google announced that it’s free Analytics tracking suite would start to track page load speed via it’s new interface.

This is without a doubt the surest sign so far that Google is serious about bringing the most responsive results to the top of its search pages and something that confirms what we geeky search people have been discussing for those two years I mention in my opening statement.

As a large company or organisation, this is a significant change but actually one that can be quite easily managed; after all, many larger organisations have a team of in house web designers and developers constantly working on both visual and “under the hood” refinements to their online outlets.

However, as a small business owner there’s no doubt that you either do the work on your site yourself in your spare time, rely on someone who covers the whole range of marketing for your business or (as is more likely) you outsource your web design and development to a team of creative and technical geeks like us.

So, what action should you take? Should you dive in and start redesigning your website to make it load a little quicker? Should you leave it alone and be wondering whether your not your site is at risk within the search results?

I think the answer to that depends on a few things, including:

• does your site need a redesign anyway? I.e. Have you been considering doing something with it for a while and really haven’t had any drive to do so? Well, now may the be time.
• have you had any feedback from your site visitors about the slow load speed of your site? If so, there’s no doubt you probably addressed it when it arose, but if not; now is certainly the time. If your visitors are noticing a slow site, then so are the robots over at Google.
• do you rely on search rankings? Whilst most businesses would agree that quality rankings are without a doubt a valuable tool in their marketing arsenal, really; how important are they in the grand scheme of your marketing strategy?
• based on the last point, will a recode or even a full redesign of your site be justifiable from an economic perspective?

There are a few points to consider there and no doubt many more that I haven’t touched on. And, should you decide that your website does need work it isn’t to say that it needs a full redesign; web companies like us can certainly employ techniques to help speed up your site without the need for a redesign or even a hefty recode in many instances.

I’m a small business owner myself, and as such have to ask myself the questions that I pose above. In all honesty, I don’t think a redesign or even any speed optimisation is on the cards for our sites quite yet.

That said, what I will be doing and what you could be doing too, is simply keeping a closer eye on the new speed reports within Google Analytics and measuring the outputs against visitor behaviour on your site.

For example, if people are taking a journey through your site and suddenly leaving at a page that perhaps has a slightly higher page load time than the page before it then you have yourself a potentially problematic page.

The bottom line is that you’re going to have many more considerations about your site to come over the next year or so (more to come on that in a separate post) and page load speed, whilst now a seemingly influential ranking factor, isn’t something that will override your quality content or link profile within the search engines. It’s very easy to react to every change that Google pushes out but we small business owners do have to manage our time effectively and decide when is best to integrate changes to our online presence in the most efficient manner.

Personally, I believe that Google et al are leaning more and more towards quality, something reflected in its recent Panda update and something that this new speed reporting lends itself to as well; a site owner whose site performs well is likely someone who has invested in the longevity and the extensibility of their site over the next few years and as such, is someone who I think is likely to achieve greater ranking prominence.

Let’s all dedicate a little more time to our Analytics figures and maximise our time as small business owners by only reacting to this new ranking factor should it start to become an issue for us.

Would you agree?