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With Googles pending update – Google Caffeine – aimed at making search and indexing of websites a whole lot faster, have you taken the time to think about your own website’s load time or Page Speed?

Google’s Matt Cutts has suggested in an interview with Web Pro News that page speed may indeed become a factor in ranking results.  In a nutshell, he says that if Google is trying to make the web a faster place, why shouldn’t they be giving a small ‘bonus’ to pages that load very fast and perhaps penalising those that do not.

What to do now?

1. Find a tool/tools to test your page speed
   • Google has a Firefox / Firebug plug in Page Speed
   • Or an online resource: try the web page otimizer
2. Optimise your Images and Scripts to enable your web page (note I say web page here, as we are talking about individual pages of your website) to load faster
   • Optimal Speed: I suggest that the primary elements (header image, navigation and text) should be loaded in under 5 seconds on a typical ADSL line
3. Test your site again and again, and refine the speed. Most of this work can be passed on to your Web Developer and Designers

All in all, Speed of your web pages will matter to Google and they matter to your site’s visitors already…