1/ It's no secret that a site's “performance” is a ranking factor for search.
But how does Google actually measure it?
Well, open up Chrome DevTools, click the ”Audits” tab, then ”Run Audits” and you'll see that “Performance” is made up from 6 metrics.
2/ Most casuals assume that performance is all about how fast a site displays on the screen — “First Meaningful Paint”.
But if you look at Google's weights you'll see that “Time to Interactive” — how long it takes for a site to become interactive — is far more important.
3/ Essentially, Google prioritises “interactivity” over “visibility”.
Even if your page appears fast, 3rd party scripts loading in the background (delaying user interaction) will see you penalised.
4/ One example of this is
@ToDesktop. Their site content loads in < 1s, but run it through a Google Audit and its “Time to Interactive” is 8.8s.
5/ The culprit is 3rd party scripts from shiny marketing tools:
• Intercom for chat
• Segment for data
• Hotjar for heatmaps
etc ...
6/ What can you can do about this?
Well, ToDesktop's founder,
@DaveJ, came up with a clever solution:
1) Load the page without any heavy scripts
2) Wait for a scroll event
3) Wait a further second
4) Then load in Intercom, Segment, etc ...
7/ The before and after results are revealing:
• “Time to Interactive” drops from 8.8s to 0.9s.
• “Paint” numbers remain exactly the same.
The casual observer may notice no difference in performance. But Google certainly does.
8/ Does this stuff make a difference?
Well, Dave made this change on June 14th.
Since then, organic clicks have tripled.
And Dave tells me they've jumped from 25th to 11th for the search “website to desktop app”.
9/ In summary:
1) Audit your website using Chrome developer tools
2) Don't be fooled by ”visibility”. Prioritise “interactivity”
3) When possible load 3rd party scripts on scroll
Oh, and here's the super simple code snippet in case you'd like it👇
Thanks to
@DaveJ and
@ToDesktop for providing me with the info.
“Marketing tools are damaging your SEO. And how to fix it“ 👉
https://t.co/EEj8VRFR5P
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Over and out - Harry 🙌
@emailoctopus Really awesome to see these tips getting used in the wild! Great stuff
@kilianvalkhof