With Google's Core Web Vitals update rolling out in May 2021, we are helping many of our Small Business SEO clients prepare, fix or even re-launch their websites to keep their rankings on Google. Two platforms that we see SMBs use most often are Duda and Wix, so we decided to put together an experiment comparing page speed for both platforms.
In This Post:
What is Page Experience Update & Core Web Vitals?
Beginning May 2021 Google is to change it's algorithm to include the ranking signals to evaluate your "Page Experience" score. In fact, what used to be four factors will now become 7.
This is called Page Experience update.
To help you adjust, Google has created a Core Web Vitals section in Google Search Console. This section evaluates performance of pages on your website and has improvement suggestions. Here is what it looks like:
However, if your website doesn't have enough traffic, this section may be blank. In this case, I recommend using PageSpeed Insights tool to evaluate your Mobile page load speed.
There are three metrics that are of interest here:
Largest Contentful Paint
First Input Delay
Cumulative Layout Shift
Why is This Important?
In the past, page load speed has been more of an indicator than a ranking factor. Prior to the update, fast Page Load Speed could give you an edge against competition when everything else was the same for both websites.
Starting May 2021, having fast Mobile Page Load Speed will be a criteria for ranking in the first place.
How Exactly Google Measures the Core Web Vitals?
There are three main metrics Google uses to evaluate page load speed.
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) -timing from when a user clicks on a link till largest element becomes visible.
First Input Delay (FID) - time from when a user clicks on a link until they can fully interact with the page.
Cumulative Layout Shift - measures stability of the page. How soon a page becomes stable? Imagine you are reading a text when suddenly an image starts to load above it and the whole text shifts down.
What Affects Page Load Speed?
Generally speaking there are lots of simple optimizations that can be done to improve Page Load Speed. Here is a couple of things you can improve:
Optimized Images
Use a maximum of one-two fonts per page
Optimize your code and remove any legacy code from your pages
Improve how images load
With that said, when it comes to Wix, Duda and some other builders, website owners have limited control over some important
The Experiment - Wix vs Duda - Page Load Speed Comparison
We've put together two pages - one on Wix platform and another on Duda. Both optimized to perform well (as much as we can affect both platforms). I optimized images, layouts, used variable fonts and more.
Page we used for to compare both platforms - www.growth-360.com/ecommerce-seo
Let's start with Mobile, as this is the score that actually matters the most due to Mobile-first indexing. These are the results we've got:
Wix - Mobile Page Load Speed
Mobile Score: 20
The Page Speed test for Wix Mobile page showed staggering 18 seconds Time to Interactive. When requested a comment from Wix they've ensured us that there will be an "enormous" push for Mobile performance. Wix is a great platform, would love to see an improvement there!
...we've already made improvements that have drastically improved our year-over-year performance on Mobile. These changes, even now, are still being integrated. To that, we are specifically working on how we address Core Web Vitals. We fully expect there to be significant improvements made on this front as the year goes on.
Duda - Mobile Page Load Speed
Mobile Score: 56
Duda's page load speed for Mobile performed much better than Wix, scoring 56 points on Mobile. While not ideal, this is a much better performance.
Wix - Desktop Page Load Speed
Desktop Score: 87
Duda - Desktop - Page Load Speed
Desktop Score: 95
Wix and Duda both did fairly well on the page speed test for Desktop devices. It's worth noting, that Duda did do slightly better.
What We Think About This?
By no means is this a conclusive test. However, this does prove a number of rumours I've heard about Page Load Speed being much better on Duda!
Is it worth switching from Wix to Duda?
It's a not-so-simple decision to make. While gains from a simple CMS migration turned out to be huge, you should also consider the following factors:
Cost of Hiring an SEO agency for website migration (as there is a risk to lose rankings if migration is not done properly)
The number of hours it will take to implement Analytics on your new website
And even the time to transfer all the content from one CMS to another.
Hope this helps you decide which way you want to take your website by May 2021. Let me know in the comments below how you approached Mobile page load speed and how it played out for your website!
Author
Sasha Matviienko is an Analytics & SEO Consultant in Analytics & Digital Marketing consultant, founder of growth360. Sasha has 10 years of Digital Marketing experience from Paid Search, SEO and Display to advanced Data Analytics and Conversion Optimization experience working with clients of all shapes and sizes in Toronto, Canada and Worldwide.