After Google started using website speed as a parameter in their ranking algorithms every webmaster has a good reason to keep an eye on the page load speed of their website. Google's bending over backwards to spread the word about this new speed penalty which must mean this is a pretty important element in web rankings since Google is usually very secretive about pending algorithm changes.

From the announcement we learn that the speed penalty was introduced following experiments by Google that revealed the impact website speed has on Internet users.  It is no secret that internet users want websites to load fast.  If your site does not load quickly, users will bail before the page every loads. When we analyze website we always monitor the bounce rate.  The bounce rate is the percentage of users that only view a single page on the website.  Page load times can be one of the elements contributing to a high bounce rate on your site.

At WSI we have tools that can help determine your websites load times and provide solutions to help reduce your load time and improve your Google ranking.  While this is not magic bullet it is certainly an element that should be considering if you are doing search marketing.