Something NO SEO or Web Developer Wants to Talk About!

[DjSec]

Misrepresenting a vehicle’s features could be considered false advertising, fraud, or deceptive trade practices, all of which are prohibited under federal and state laws.​

Yet web developers and SEO have no problem misrepresenting there features!

A web developer will claim lighting fast load times when the site has an LCP of 45 seconds, anything but lighting fast, ADA compliant and then use a third party plugin that is the opposite of being ADA compliant.

And Core Web Vitals are an important part of SEO but SEO’s ignore it (because they don’t know how to fix it) and claim to be doing SEO when if you don’t have the Core Web Vitals under control nothing else matters.

There is nothing that affects rankings, conversions, visibility, and affects the users experience, engagement, and affects conversions and revenue like page speed.

So why do SEO's and web developers ignore it and never talk about?​

While 3 out of 4 car shoppers are searching for the next vehicle car on their cell phone, 99% of dealer websites fail Google’s performance standards.

Koons.com decided to do something about this and three weeks in they saw a 800% increases in conversion, 60 days in they saw a 1400% increase in conversion. The team working on the speed problem promised to double conversions by speeding up the site but it more than double it was a 14x increase in conversions.

Amazon said for every 100 milliseconds improvement in load times they would make an extra 3 billion per year.

The group working on Koons.com said the #1 reason for shop abandonment was page speed.

Google did a study that showed that for every 0.1 seconds improvement in page speed, you get a 7% boost in conversion.​

Which basically means if your spending $250.00 and getting a sale, you could increase it to $500.00 and get the extra sale that way or increase page speed by one millisecond and leave everything else the same, and get the extra sale that way.

One way doubles your ad spend, the other leaves everything the same!

If you look at the math Coons was loading in 26 seconds on mobile, on 4G and they got that down to 2.6 seconds in the same conditions so a 10x decrease in load times resulted in a 10x increase in conversion.

The tema working on Koons.com said at first they blamed Facebook and Google for the poor conversions but now they realize it was their website.

At one time 20% of your traffic was on mobile but now over 80% are on mobile, yet mobile hasn't evolved, the dealership doesn’t see the problem because almost 100% of them are on desktop, with a blazing fast internet and a 21 inch flat screen monitor.

Case Studies of Speed and Sales Growth​

• Mobify: A 1.11% increase in sales was noted for every 100-millisecond improvement in page load time.
• Walmart: The company saw a 2% increase in conversions for every second of load time reduced.
• Cook: A 7% increase in conversions was observed for every 850 milliseconds of load time saved.
• Amazon: Found that for every 100 milliseconds of improved load time, there was a 1% increase in sales

If a dealership website takes 23.6 seconds to load and you get it down to .8 milliseconds and using Amazon’s example above:​

Determine the improvement in load time:

• Initial load time: 23.6 seconds
• Improved load time: 0.8 seconds
• Improvement: 23.6seconds−0.8seconds=22.8seconds

1. Convert the improvement to milliseconds:
   • 22.8seconds×1000milliseconds/second=22,800milliseconds
2. Calculate the percentage increase in sales based on the improvement:
   • According to Amazon, every 100ms improvement in load times results in a 1% increase in sales.
   • 100milliseconds divided 22,800milliseconds =228

This means that an improvement of 22,800 milliseconds (or 22.8 seconds) would correspond to a:

• 228×1%=228% increase in sales.

Therefore, if the website's load time is reduced from 23.6 seconds to 0.8 seconds, they might see a 228% increase in sales based on Amazon's math.

And that is in addition to the increase in rankings!​

In recent years, Google has placed increased emphasis on user experience (UX) as a fundamental part of search engine ranking.

To help website owners and developers improve their websites’ UX, Google introduced Core Web Vitals—a set of metrics that assess how well a website performs based on real-world user experience.

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What Are Core Web Vitals?​

Core Web Vitals are a set of specific performance metrics that Google considers crucial for a healthy and satisfying user experience. They were introduced to provide website owners with concrete and measurable goals to improve site performance in ways that impact the user’s experience.

Google’s Core Web Vitals are broken down into three primary metrics:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Measures loading performance.
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): Measures visual stability.
• First Input Delay (FID): Measures interactivity.

Collectively, these metrics evaluate page load speed, stability, and responsiveness—three factors influence whether a user stays on a page or leaves.

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1. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Measuring Page Load Speed​

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) is a metric that measures how quickly the largest visible element (such as an image, video, or large block of text) loads on the page. LCP directly impacts how fast users perceive a page to load, which can strongly influence their experience and willingness to engage.

• Goal for LCP: Ideally, LCP should occur within 2.5 seconds after the page begins to load. If LCP takes longer than 4 seconds, it’s considered poor.
• Why LCP Matters: Users expect a page to load quickly, and pages that meet this expectation tend to have higher engagement and retention rates. A slow LCP can frustrate users, leading them to abandon the page.
• Improving LCP: To improve LCP, focus on optimizing server response times, reducing render-blocking resources, and compressing large images and media files. Lazy loading can also significantly reduce LCP times.

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2. Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): Ensuring Visual Stability​

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) is a metric that measures the visual stability of a page by tracking unexpected layout shifts as the page loads. CLS occurs when elements on the page move around unexpectedly, often due to loading delays for images, ads, or fonts. A low CLS score indicates a stable visual experience, while a high CLS score suggests that users might experience unexpected shifts, which can be disruptive and frustrating.

• Goal for CLS: Aim for a CLS score below 0.1. A CLS score above 0.25 is considered poor.
• Why CLS Matters: Imagine reading an article when suddenly an ad loads above the content, pushing everything down. Such layout shifts harm user experience and can lead to accidental clicks, especially on mobile devices. A stable layout enhances usability and user satisfaction.
• Improving CLS: To improve CLS, assign size attributes (such as height and width) to images and videos, preload fonts, and avoid injecting dynamic content that shifts other elements. CSS and JavaScript can also be optimized to prevent content from shifting unexpectedly.

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3. First Input Delay (FID): Measuring Interactivity​

First Input Delay (FID) measures the time it takes for a page to respond to the user’s first interaction, such as clicking a button, tapping a link, or entering data. This metric assesses how interactive and responsive the page feels to the user. FID is especially relevant for pages with complex JavaScript functions or other elements that may delay interactions.

• Goal for FID: FID should be under 100 milliseconds. Delays beyond 300 milliseconds are considered poor and can lead to user frustration.
• Why FID Matters: Users expect pages to be responsive. A high FID indicates that the page takes too long to process interactions, leading users to feel disconnected from the experience. This can increase bounce rates and reduce engagement.
• Improving FID: Minimizing JavaScript execution time is one of the most effective ways to improve FID. Reducing the size of third-party scripts, deferring JavaScript, and implementing efficient code splitting can help lower FID. Browser caching can also contribute to faster interactivity.

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Why Core Web Vitals Are Important for SEO​

Core Web Vitals play a vital role in Google’s search ranking algorithm. With mobile-first indexing, Google prioritizes the mobile user experience, making Core Web Vitals an important factor in determining a website’s overall quality and relevance. Websites that perform well on these metrics are more likely to rank higher in search engine results, which can lead to increased visibility, organic traffic, and conversions.

In short, Core Web Vitals are crucial for:

• Enhanced SEO: Google prioritizes sites with excellent Core Web Vitals in its rankings, improving search visibility.
• Better User Experience: Core Web Vitals directly influence usability, helping to retain users and increase engagement.
• Increased Conversion Rates: By optimizing performance and user experience, Core Web Vitals can contribute to higher conversion rates.

Page Speed also affects your sites ability to get crawled!​

To start, larger sites tend to rank better!​

A larger site will out rank a smaller site because with a larger site you're able to control the flow of your internal link juice and you’ve got more pages to receive external links.

A larger site will have a Higher Domain Authority!​

Large sites have more pages to rank and tend to generate more links and achieve higher domain authority. When you have more page links to share and distribute, you have greater potential to earn a diverse mix of high-quality links.

And you have more internal link juice to control and this is important because for every keyword you bid on you should have a custom designed landing page specifically for that keyword.

However if Google can't spider your site and find those pages it won't matter!​

Because Google has a Crawl Budget​

The Crawl Budget is the number of pages Googlebot will crawl within a given time frame. If a page takes more than a second for the first content paint it can lead to a lower crawl budget, meaning fewer pages from your site get indexed.

Google doesn't have unlimited resources to spend crawling websites. That's why there are crawl budgets in the first place. Basically, it's a way for Google to prioritize which pages to crawl.

Google has a Crawl Rate​

Crawl rate is the number of requests a search engine crawler makes to a website in a day and was introduced to reduce server overload.

If your site takes longer than a second for the first content paint, Googlebot will reduce its crawl rate to avoid overloading your server, leading to less frequent updates and potentially missing new or updated content.

Google has a Crawl Depth​

If your site takes longer than a second for the first content paint the site may not have their deeper pages crawled and indexed, affecting the visibility of those pages in the search results.

Crawl depth influences how efficiently Google can index your content. Googlebot has limited time and server resources. Therefore, the number of pages Googlebot can crawl on your site during a specific time frame, is finite.

Google has a Crawl Timeout​

Googlebot has a limited amount of time to crawl each page. So if your site takes longer than a second for the first content paint, Googlebot may abandon the crawl altogether, leaving your pages unindexed.

Core Web Vitals​

And it affects rankings in more than one way!

User Experience and Engagement Metrics​

• Bounce Rate: Google’s own research indicates that bounce rate increases dramatically as page load time increases. Specifically, bounce rate almost triples when page load time exceeds three seconds. This means users are more likely to leave your site before it fully loads, negatively impacting user engagement metrics that Google considers in its ranking algorithm.
• Session Duration: Can impact search engine rankings. Search engines like Google look at user engagement as a signal when ranking websites because they want to send people to websites that provide a great experience. The longer someone stays on and the more pages people click on is an indication to Google people are enjoying their web experience. And studies have shown that 53% of people will leave a site if it takes longer than 3 seconds for the largest content paint.

There is nothing that affects rankings, conversions, visibility, and affects the users experience, engagement, and affects conversions and revenue like page speed.

So why do SEO's and web developers ignore it and never talk about?

 

[joe.pistell]

dude, easy on the AI gen content.

 

[DjSec]

dude, easy on the AI gen content.

Dude, that isn't AI content, that is me writing!

As a matter of a fact most that content came from a blog post I wrote in 2012 before AI was even a thing.

And instead of saying things that are incorrect why not talk about the topic?

Also you will notice I do a lot of attacking in my content and those AI's want do that.

But please point out the AI content and explain to me what makes it AI content because I'd really like to know why you guys keep saying that it is AI content and how you can't respond too it because its AI content.

 

[DjSec]

dude, easy on the AI gen content.

As a matter of fact the content was put together while debating a bunch of SEO's, you should either show your proof or apologize and either way how does it take away from the message?

1.) Show proof
2.) Explain why it matters
3.) Explain why this isn't a topic that should be talked about
4.) Explain why you attack me instead of the message

And I'd see if I could find the original thread but the SEO's I was debating over on Linkedin banned me from the topic and removed all my comments because they knew I was correct.

I'm posting a lot, it seems like you could find something I have said that is incorrect and I'm sure if you did you would attack it but since you can't you attack me and make up lies.

And I don't have a paid account, I'm not even sure if the AI would write a post that long.

And my phone number is 770-897-6107 call it and see if there is something I wrote about that I don't know about!

 

[BillVaughnAlWestNissan]

As a matter of a fact most that content came from a blog post I wrote in 2012 before AI was even a thing.

I'm more concerned that things from 2012 are still true.

 

[Ryan Everson]

dude, easy on the AI gen content.

I'm more concerned that things from 2012 are still true.

@DjSec love the underlying passion here! That said, I think DealerRefresh readers would connect more if the posts focused less on ideal-world scenarios and theory - and more on the real results you’ve recently driven for dealerships. What worked, how it worked, and how DealerRefreshers can take action and implement it at their own stores.

Especially the kind of stuff that still delivers, even when OEMs have your hands tied behind your back.

 

[DjSec]

I'm more concerned that things from 2012 are still true.

The debates about speed were being debated all the way back to something like 2002, then in 2016 Google launched Google Lighthouse and in 2018 the debates got pretty lively so those article were probably a combinations from 2002 through 2019 and then the LinkedIn debate happened around 2020 so that is when it all got fine-tuned and put together.

Google first announced that page speed would be a ranking factor for desktop searches in April 2010. This initiative aimed to enhance user experience by prioritizing faster-loading websites in search results.

Google conducted the study titled "The Need for Mobile Speed," which revealed that 53% of mobile site visits are abandoned if pages take longer than 3 seconds to load and released it in September 2016.

In January 2018, Google expanded this criterion to include mobile searches, stating that starting in July 2018, page speed would also be a ranking factor for mobile search results.

A lot of studies have been done to show that speed affects conversions:

• Google's Research: A 0.1-second improvement in mobile site speed led to an 8.4% increase in retail conversions and a 10.1% increase in travel conversions. Google Business
• Portent's Analysis: Pages that load in 1 second have an average conversion rate of nearly 40%, which drops to 34% at a 2-second load time and continues to decline as load time increases. Portent
• SOASTA's Findings: A 1-second delay in load time can impact conversions by up to 20% in the retail sector. Google Business
• Cloudflare's Insights: Faster page speeds are consistently linked to better conversion rates, as quicker load times enhance user experience and engagement. NitroPack+1Connect, protect, and build everywhere+1
• Bidnamic's Research: For every second a site loads faster, conversion rates can improve by 17%, highlighting the importance of optimizing load times. bidnamic.com

Then you've got studies showing a decline in attention spans:

• Microsoft Study (2015): This research indicated that the average human attention span decreased from 12 seconds in 2000 to 8 seconds in 2013. Samba Recovery
• Dr. Gloria Mark's Research: Dr. Mark's findings reveal that the average attention span when using digital devices has dropped from approximately 2.5 minutes in 2004 to just 47 seconds in recent years. Santa Maria College
• Nature Communications Study: This study supports concerns about narrowing collective attention spans, suggesting that our brains have limitations on how much attention can be sustained and where it can be allocated. Andrews University
• Northeastern University Insights: Professor Art Kramer notes that research suggests a decrease in average attention spans, which may pose challenges, especially given the common misconception about multitasking abilities. Northeastern Global News

Combing those studies would show that people are less likely to wait for a page to load today then they were a year ago.

So it is more relevant today then it at any other time in history!

 

[BillVaughnAlWestNissan]

The debates about speed were being debated all the way back to something like 2002, then in 2016 Google launched Google Lighthouse and in 2018 the debates got pretty lively so those article were probably a combinations from 2002 through 2019 and then the LinkedIn debate happened around 2020 so that is when it all got fine-tuned and put together.

Google first announced that page speed would be a ranking factor for desktop searches in April 2010. This initiative aimed to enhance user experience by prioritizing faster-loading websites in search results.

Google conducted the study titled "The Need for Mobile Speed," which revealed that 53% of mobile site visits are abandoned if pages take longer than 3 seconds to load and released it in September 2016.

In January 2018, Google expanded this criterion to include mobile searches, stating that starting in July 2018, page speed would also be a ranking factor for mobile search results.

A lot of studies have been done to show that speed affects conversions:

• Google's Research: A 0.1-second improvement in mobile site speed led to an 8.4% increase in retail conversions and a 10.1% increase in travel conversions. Google Business
• Portent's Analysis: Pages that load in 1 second have an average conversion rate of nearly 40%, which drops to 34% at a 2-second load time and continues to decline as load time increases. Portent
• SOASTA's Findings: A 1-second delay in load time can impact conversions by up to 20% in the retail sector. Google Business
• Cloudflare's Insights: Faster page speeds are consistently linked to better conversion rates, as quicker load times enhance user experience and engagement. NitroPack+1Connect, protect, and build everywhere+1
• Bidnamic's Research: For every second a site loads faster, conversion rates can improve by 17%, highlighting the importance of optimizing load times. bidnamic.com

Then you've got studies showing a decline in attention spans:

• Microsoft Study (2015): This research indicated that the average human attention span decreased from 12 seconds in 2000 to 8 seconds in 2013. Samba Recovery
• Dr. Gloria Mark's Research: Dr. Mark's findings reveal that the average attention span when using digital devices has dropped from approximately 2.5 minutes in 2004 to just 47 seconds in recent years. Santa Maria College
• Nature Communications Study: This study supports concerns about narrowing collective attention spans, suggesting that our brains have limitations on how much attention can be sustained and where it can be allocated. Andrews University
• Northeastern University Insights: Professor Art Kramer notes that research suggests a decrease in average attention spans, which may pose challenges, especially given the common misconception about multitasking abilities. Northeastern Global News

Combing those studies would show that people are less likely to wait for a page to load today then they were a year ago.

So it is more relevant today then it at any other time in history!

I thiiiiiiiink this might be what Ryan was talking about. It was just a little joke, my friend.

 

[DjSec]

@DjSec love the underlying passion here! That said, I think DealerRefresh readers would connect more if the posts focused less on ideal-world scenarios and theory - and more on the real results you’ve recently driven for dealerships. What worked, how it worked, and how DealerRefreshers can take action and implement it at their own stores.

Especially the kind of stuff that still delivers, even when OEMs have your hands tied behind your back.

The problem is the OEM's have the dealerships hands tied behind their back so it is hard to test, with that being said Koons.com did test it and said that they saw a 800% increases in conversion two weeks in and 60 days in it jumped to a 1400% increase in conversion.

I'm willing to test it, I can build a site that will load in .5 milliseconds but would need an old domain name, some hosting, and inventory.

The dealership has everything to gain by testing it, for me its just an I told you so moment!

For the dealership it exposure, the potential of more sales, free links and marketing.

You can even setup a dealership review page and help the dealership build it's online reputation.

For me its a lot of thinking, coding, building database, designs, learning how things work on the dealership level, and trying to figure out how things would best work!

And trying to design and implement all the stuff Uncle Joe talked about in his other thread.

It would be no small project!

 

[DjSec]

I thiiiiiiiink this might be what Ryan was talking about. It was just a little joke, my friend.

Yes, I knew it was a joke but just wanted to make sure you knew...I was laughing when I was writing it!

It is hard to tell rather someone is upset or not by their writing but there is so much bad information going around the internet I just want to make sure someone else doesn't wonder onto the thread and think the wrong thing