Google’s Inside Adwords Blog recently featured the article “Landing page load time will soon be incorporated into Quality Score”. 

As part of our continuing efforts to improve the user experience, we will soon incorporate an additional factor into Quality Score: landing page load time. Load time is the amount of time it takes for a user to see the landing page after clicking an ad.

Apparently, the ubiquitous Google has seen fit to tie your website’s performance to your website’s ranking in search results.  Yes, it’s a bit stunning, but true.  Wait, there’s more to it:  Your website’s performance affects the ranking for your paid listings!  Therefore, if you advertise with Google (and, who doesn’t these days), it is in your best interest to speed up your load times.

Luckily, Google has a few suggestions for doing just that:

IV. How can I improve my load time?

The AdWords system re-evaluates landing pages on a regular basis. If you make significant improvements to your landing page’s load time, you should see an improved Quality Score and lower minimum cost-per-click (CPC) bids. Note that your Quality Score may update incrementally over a number of weeks after you improve your load time.

Here are some tips for improving your load time:

• Use fewer redirects.
• Reduce the page size by using fewer, smaller, and more highly-compressed images.
• Do not use interstitial pages.
• Minimize the use of iframes on your landing page.
• Contact your webmaster or webhosting provider to discuss other ways of improving your landing page’s load time.

Words of wisdom from Google…wash, rinse, repeat.