Link building is the bread and butter tactic of SEOs. It’s the most talked about and most sought after. Companies that do it right can make a page skyrocket in search, but do it wrong and you’ll be penalized and end up further down.
If you’re one of the lucky ones to make it, the next logical step is to decrease your bounce rate by lowering the amount of instances where customers back out.
It’s possible customers are backing out for relevancy sake, but if you’re sure you’ve tweaked your content to perfection you might be surprised to learn that page speed could be the silent killer.
Here are seven ways to help you get the best of SEO ( without link building )
1) Optimize Images
Photoshop has a built in image processing script that will help scale down images and optimize them for web. Make sure you save the photo as a Jpeg and adjust quality and size to fit what you need.
PNGs are also good formats that decrease size while maintaining quality. Yahoo’s “SmushIT” API is also good for this task, taking care of batch resizing tasks and optimizing images for web.
2)Switch Backgrounds to CSS
Using CSS to render your background speeds up your load time exponentially. Designers accustomed to gradients for that extra polish can now utilize the CSS Gradient code to cut down on the amount of time the browser spends rendering images.
Even with an image that is one or two pixels wide, the page must recreate it and resize it as needed to fit the user’s resolution.
3) Minimize Redirects
Every time the user attempts to access a page that redirects him elsewhere, it increases the time your server has to spend communicating.
According to SEO Inc, it also penalizes your efforts at search engine optimization because the user is not finding what he needs. If necessary, reorganize the structure of your website to better accommodate the features you are building. Taking the time to properly categorize your site, and paying more attention to navigation will help users find what they are looking for faster.
4) Reorder Your Style Sheets
Using the and sections of your site’s code, you should rearrange the style sheets so that they load by type. Placing all of your sheets together is like de-fragmenting your hard drive. It saves the server time retrieving information from multiple locations.
5) Scale Images
Scaling your high definition images, with the option for users to click on the image to see a higher resolution version, is a simple way to cut down on time spent pinging your server. Think about the first time visitor who comes to your website.
He is not as inclined to view your high definition photography close up until he has a better idea of what the site is about. Scaling your images so that they load alongside the content of your webpage will give readers the chance to figure out what your page is about.
6) Use Browser Caching
Get a lot of repeat visits? Browser caching will help those users see your content faster. You can essentially optimize your site for repeat visit by adding an “Expires” tag to your page. The user’s computer will store files temporarily, so if they visit more than once in a month they will see an increase in performance.
7) Run Minify
WordPress users can install the WP-Minify plugin and run a program that optimizes much of the back-end files on their website. By combining similar files into one, Minify cuts down on the time the user must download objects to render your site by removing unnecessary information from style sheets. Simple things like extra spacing, or unimportant comments can bog down your site.
SEO now factors in how users interact with your site. If you truly want to make the most of your optimization efforts, focus on making the user’s experience the best.
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