Weekly SEO news: 18 April 2017
Welcome to the latest issue of our newsletter!

Here are the latest website promotion and Internet marketing tips for you.

We hope that you enjoy this newsletter and that it helps you to get more out of your website. Please forward this newsletter to your friends.

Best regards,
Andre Voget, Johannes Selbach, Axandra CEO

1. How the loading time of your web pages affects your search engine rankings (and your bottom line)

Google likes fast web pages. According to Google's John Mueller, web pages should load within three seconds or less. Page speed is a factor in Google's ranking algorithm.

get a fast website

Fast web pages are important

Google has a 'mobile first' strategy. Google wants to deliver web pages in the search results that are displayed quickly on mobile devices. Your pages should deliver the fastest user experience you can achieve.

In addition to the influence of fast pages on your Google rankings, fast pages are also important for the user experience:

  • Mobile Internet users will leave websites that are too slow, frozen, or not available.
  • Most consumers expect a web page to load in a few seconds.
  • Many consumers abandon websites that do not load within five seconds.
  • Each second that your web pages need longer to load can have a negative influence on the conversion rate of your website.

If your web pages do not load quickly enough, you will lose customers. In addition, Google won't rank your web pages as highly as they could be ranked.

How to check the loading time of your web pages

Among many other things, the Website Audit tool in SEOprofiler checks the loading time of your web pages. The 'Performance' page in the audit report shows the fastest and the slowest pages of your website, and it lets you filter the pages of your website by loading time:

website performance analysis

If you do not make sure that your website loads quickly, your competition will make sure that their websites do.

Optimize your web pages now

SEOprofiler offers many powerful tools that help you to get better rankings on Google and other search engines. If you haven't done it yet, create your SEOprofiler account now and check the speed of your web pages in the Website Audit tool:

Try the audit tool now

2. Internet marketing news of the week

GoogleGoogle: use as many H1 tags as you want

"In response to a question from a novice SEO about how many H1, header tags, should he use on a single page, John said on Twitter as many as he wants.

Normally, a response from John would be, it doesn't matter much for Google, but use as many H1 tags as you think would benefit your reader."


Google: Domain age doesn't matter for search rankings

"Google's John Mueller responded with a resounding 'no' when he was asked if domain age matters for ranking in Google's search results. John responded on Twitter to the question by simply saying 'no' and adding no more detail."


GoogleGoogle: Internal nofollow links don't devalue the page they are on

"An interesting question was posed to Google's Gary Illyes on Twitter asking if 'internal nofollow links devalue the page that it's on?' Gary said that they do not devalue that page and asked why would they."

Editor's note: The linked pages will still be devalued. We do not recommend nofollow for internal links because you basically show Google that you do not trust your own links.

+++ SEARCH +++ ENGINE +++ NEWS +++ TICKER +++

  • Are AdWords advertisers about to get a lot more Quality Score reporting metrics?
  • Google My Business lets you enter URL attributes for other business information.
  • Is Google AMP worth it? If your website has a poor mobile experience, AMP should be a low priority for you – there are bigger fish to fry.
  • Google: You have better things to do than update your disavow file.

3. Previous articles

Do you need better rankings for your website?

SEOprofiler is a web-based search marketing tool that helps you to get better Google rankings. You can create a free SEOprofiler account here. The step-by-step manual will help you to get started as quickly as possible.