If you’ve been around the blogging block—especially in the food blogging world—you’ve likely heard how crucial page speed is for your site’s SEO.

Ad networks, hosting providers, and countless optimization tools consistently stress the importance of lightning-fast loading times. But is page speed alone truly what makes or breaks your rankings?

Let’s dive into a conversation I recently had with a client that sheds some light on this hotly debated topic.

The Page Speed “Rabbit Hole”

It’s true. Google cares about user experience, and page speed is part of that experience. However, it’s not as simple as “faster sites always rank higher.”

Google’s algorithm doesn’t rank sites purely based on a speed test score. Google measures what real users actually experience.

If your site’s real-world metrics are all “in the green,” that’s great. Good for you. *virtual high-five* But, your fancy speed test scores don’t matter nearly as much as you’ve been told. Keep reading!

How to Find Your Page Speed Insights

To find out what your real users are experiencing, go to Page Speed Insights, type in your URL, then click ‘Analyze’.

If you don’t see anything under “Discover what our real users are experiencing”, it means your site doesn’t have enough traffic yet for Google to provide reliable data.

In this case, you can reference the “Diagnose performance issues,” but be careful going down the rabbit hole and chasing perfection. It’s nearly impossible.

See that “Slow 4G throttling”?

That means that Google is diagnosing your performance issues based on a slow 4G connection. More than half of Americans don’t have slow 4G connections.

So, take those scores with a grain of salt. If your metrics look anywhere close to this one, your real users are probably doing just fine:

How do I know?

Because that URL I showed you gets 400K visits per day and ranks for 143K keywords and ranks 6,100 keywords in the Top 3 on Google.

So, if those diagnosis metrics really mattered to a ranking, wouldn’t this site be losing keywords left and right?

Real users are experiencing fast page speed. That is all that matters.

But, if you scroll down, you suddenly feel like you’ve went from “hero” to “zero.” Whomp, whomp, whomp. 🙁

If you haven’t done this already, plop in your competitor’s URLs and see how they score.

You’ll notice that most of the top-ranking pages on Google all score fairly badly in that Diagnosis section and score decently in real users, but there are still loads of sites that rank well that fail Core Web Vitals for real users.

Speed Scores vs. User Experience

So, does page speed matter?

Yes, it does. But it matters insofar as it affects your users.

A sluggish site annoys visitors and leads them to leave—also known as bouncing. That bounce rate is what can harm your rankings.

Slow load times are one possible cause of a bounce, but they’re not the only cause.

Google also makes us focus on these test scores by putting stuff like Core Web Vitals in front us, making us think “this must be a ranking factor!”

The Real Ranking Factor: Engagement

I prefer to think of page speed (and core web vitals) as the cause, which can contribute to a high bounce rate—the effect.

Google pays attention to bounce rates (among other engagement metrics, like time-on-page, click-through rate, and a smattering of others that I go over in this article).

In other words, if your site is painfully slow, jumps all over the place, or ads are slow to load, users may bail before your mouthwatering content even appears on the screen.

That signals to Google that your page wasn’t useful, and your rankings could drop as a result.

But, are slow page speeds really what’s happening in 2025?

Why Are Readers Bouncing?

“…if the page speed isn’t why I’m ranking lower and the bounce rate is what is causing the lower ranking, why are users bouncing?”

Exactly! This is the million-dollar question. If your page loads quickly and you’re still facing a high bounce rate, it’s time to focus on user engagement.

According to a recent study, 53 percent of the US have smartphone subscriptions that are 5G (Source). So, let’s assume that most real users on your site are not experiencing slow load times.

Let’s say your site loads fast, yet you’re still not ranking in SERPs. In that case, page speed isn’t the culprit.

Ask yourself:

1. Is my content providing value to the reader?

Ah! The second million-dollar question. What is valuable to readers?

Well, ask yourself, when you wrote the content, did you write it to answer readers questions about a particular recipe, or did you write it to rank on SERPs?

In Google’s words, was the recipe post written from a people-first approach or a search engine-first approach?

Of course we all write content to rank on Google. Otherwise, why are we even creating content? For clout? Nope. Duh! We’re trying to rank on Google!

However, what Google is really asking is “did you come up with this topic/keyword solely for the purpose of ranking on Google or do you really have content that readers would perceive as valuable?”

Value is all perception. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Your content needs to answer the reader’s questions or at least pique their curiosity and then provide them a solution.

You must do all of this so that readers don’t return to the SERPs.

If a reader clicks to your page and then hits the “back” button to return to the SERPs, that’s a bounce. And if they click on another page from the SERPs, that is called “pogosticking.”

Pogosticking is when someone clicks on a search result, doesn’t find what they’re looking for, and quickly bounces back to the search results to try another link.

It’s like they’re “pogoing” between results, searching for the right answer.

Google sees this behavior as a sign that the page didn’t meet the user’s expectations. Too much pogosticking, down go your rankings. Pogosticking signals poor user experience or irrelevant content.

The fix? Make sure your page matches search intent, loads fast, and delivers clear, engaging, useful information right away.

2. Is your content well-structured and easy to read?

Big blocks of text and poor formatting can scare users away. Use:

  • Write engaging headings. These help break up your content into subtopics and helps the reader skim instead of read your content. STOP USING A TEMPLATE TO WRITE YOUR RECIPES! There, I said it. I might’ve even screamed it as I typed it. I won’t go into the why of that soapbox in this post, but I do in this post.
  • Use bolded text. As you can tell, I like to bold text on buzzwords to help you, the reader, skim the content. The buzzwords that I choose to bold are the ones that I think will help you answer your questions.
  • Finally, write in short, succinct paragraphs. If your paragraph is longer than 3 sentences, try to break it up into 2 paragraphs. I know in school we all learned that paragraphs are 3-5 sentences. But, thanks to the world of social media (I don’t like social media, LOL!), people are able to comprehend shorter paragraphs much better than long paragraphs.

3. Do you answer user questions effectively?

Especially in the food niche, people want quick, clear instructions and helpful tips.

Consider inferred questions too, such as, “are the ingredients to this recipe easily accessible?”

An example of this would be a recipe that uses fresh, corn on the cob vs. another that uses canned corn. Most readers don’t have fresh corn on hand, but if your house is like mine, you’ve got cans of corn for days.

When the reader clicks “Jump to Recipe” (and they all do), are they seeing ingredients that they usually have on hand in their home or are they seeing stuff that will cause them to make a trip to the store?

If your recipes are targeted at the “quick and easy” audience, consider adding alternatives to ingredients in your recipe that people may not have on hand so the reader is still engaged and feels like they could go to their kitchen at that very moment and prepare that recipe.

If your audience and your competition isn’t targeting the “quick and easy” audience, then you might need to consider other ways to keep a reader engaged.

For example, if you’re focused on the sourdough audience, they likely know that sourdough starter isn’t something they will have on hand right away.

Or, if they are new, they might not know that.

So, instead of letting bounce as soon as they see “sourdough starter” in your recipe card, guide them to a recipe that can help them get started with a sourdough starter with an expertly-placed internal link to keep them engaged. 😉

Which brings me to my next point, interactive elements.

4. Are there interactive elements or visuals to keep users engaged?

Beautiful photos, how-to videos, or related recipes can encourage them to linger longer.

Another place for people to linger is the comments section.

Encourage people to comment on posts and engage with them.

A reader that sees authors engagement with other comments is much more likely to comment than one who is on a post where the author never responds. Respond! No one likes the silent treatment.

Page Speed Is Just One Part of the Puzzle

In short, yes, page speed matters for SEO—but not because of the speed score itself.

A slow site can push users to bounce, and that user behavior (the bounce) is a critical signal to Google that your content might not be meeting visitor expectations.

If your site loads quickly yet visitors still aren’t sticking around, the issue goes beyond speed.

It’s time to examine user experience and the quality of your content. Optimizing images and throwing up some broad FAQ’s (don’t do that, here is why) can only get you so far if what’s on the page doesn’t captivate your audience.

Next Steps

If you’re ready to tackle the heart of the matter—keeping readers engaged—read this article: How to Write and Research Engaging Content.

We’ll dive into practical strategies for creating content that captivates your audience from the get-go, so you can keep those bounce rates low and those rankings high.

After all, page speed might be the spark, but engagement is what truly keeps the fire burning.

What are your thoughts on page speed and user engagement? Have you noticed any changes in your rankings after focusing on one over the other? Drop your thoughts or questions in the comments below—I’d love to hear your take!

Tah-tah for now,

Joe