INP and its Significance for Your Law Firm’s Website

The importance of a well-optimised website cannot be overstated. Aside from serving as a digital business card, your law firm’s website works as a client acquisition tool and a means to connect with potential clients. However, even the most informative and visually appealing website can fall short if it lacks speed.

Website speed impacts user experience and plays an important role in determining conversion rates—the percentage of visitors who take desired actions, such as filling out a contact form or scheduling a consultation. Website speed can also influence your Google Search rankings by either increasing or reducing your online visibility.

In this blog, we’ll explore the significance of the latest Google Core Web Vital metric – INP, and how it can affect your law firm’s website performance and its ability to convert visitors into clients. We’ll also delve into its impact on SEO and PPC advertising results.

What is Interaction to Next Paint (INP)?

INP measures the time it takes for a site user to interact with a web page for the first time after it has started loading. This interaction could be clicking a link, tapping a button, or any other action that requires your website to respond. In essence, INP quantifies the responsiveness of your website—how quickly it reacts to user input.

As of March 2024, Interaction to Next Paint (INP) has replaced FID (First Input Delay) as one of the primary Core Web Vitals.

What are the Google Core Web Vitals?

Google Core Web Vitals are a set of metrics that Google considers essential for a good user experience on the web. Alongside INP, other Core Web Vitals include:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) and
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS).

These metrics collectively gauge aspects like loading speed, visual stability, and interactivity of your website pages.

The Impact of Loading Speed on Search Rankings

Website loading speed has been a factor in search engine rankings for a while now. Google, in particular, considers page speed as one of the signals used by its algorithm to rank pages. Faster-loading websites tend to rank higher in search results, providing them with increased visibility and, consequently, more potential clients.

Do all website designers prioritise site speed?

Unfortunately, the emphasis on website speed among website designers varies. While some designers prioritise speed as fundamental to their design philosophy and adhere strictly to industry best practices, others may prioritise other aspects of design, such as aesthetics. Technical limitations, such as hosting infrastructure or platform constraints, can also sometimes impact a designer’s ability to optimise speed effectively.

Site Speed and Its Relevance in SEO

Visitors are more likely to engage with a website that loads quickly and responds promptly to their actions. For this reason, site speed has become incredibly important to Google. A fast-loading website can reduce bounce rates and increase conversion rates, ultimately contributing to better user experience and your success on the internet.

Does Great Content Alone Suffice If My Website is Slow?

You may already know the importance of having engaging content on your website. Great content is undeniably a cornerstone of any law firm’s online success. But, in the digital world, where attention spans are short and competition is fierce, good content alone may not suffice to achieve desired results if your website is slow. This is because Google cares about how people experience your website. If your website doesn’t provide a good experience (measured by a set of metrics), that can hinder your ability to capitalise on your content effectively. Google prefers fast-loading websites, so if your website is slow, it may not make it to the top of the rankings.

Why does speed matter so much?

A slow website frustrates visitors and leads to higher bounce rates—the percentage of visitors who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page. Even if your content is exceptional, users are unlikely to engage with it if they’re met with sluggish load times and unresponsive pages.

A fast website, on the other hand, enhances user experience, encouraging visitors to explore your content and engage with your firm.

Effect on Search Engine Rankings

Search engines prioritise user experience in their ranking algorithms. A slow website may be penalised in search results, reducing its visibility and limiting the reach of your content. Conversely, a fast-loading website is more likely to rank higher in search results, attracting organic traffic and amplifying the impact of your content.

It’s worth considering that Google itself is a service provider. If Google doesn’t deliver a good experience to its users, i.e., relevant search results, that user may turn away from Google and use another search tool, e.g., Bing. This is one of the primary reasons why Google has a ranking system that checks if your website is good enough to show to its users.

Can website speed also affect my advertising campaigns?

Your website’s loading speed can significantly affect your advertising campaigns, including PPC advertising, social media campaigns, and traditional forms of advertising.

Effect on PPC Advertising

In PPC advertising, such as Google Ads or Bing Ads, site speed plays an important role in determining the quality score of your landing pages. A slow-loading website can result in lower conversion rates, negatively impacting your ad performance and increasing your cost per click (CPC). Additionally, search engines consider user experience as a factor in ad rankings, so a slow website may result in lower ad placements and reduced visibility.

Effect on Social Media Campaigns

Social media platforms also prioritise user experience and site speed is a critical component of that experience. Slow-loading websites can lead to frustrated users who are less likely to engage with your social media ads or click through to your website. This can result in decreased effectiveness of your social media marketing efforts. Similarly to Google and Bing, platforms like Facebook and Instagram may penalise ads that direct users to slow-loading websites by reducing their reach or increasing their cost.

Effect on Traditional Forms of Advertising

Even in traditional forms of advertising, such as print ads or billboards, site speed can indirectly impact campaign effectiveness. Modern consumers often use their mobile phones to research or interact with brands after seeing traditional advertisements. If your website is slow to load on mobile devices, potential customers may lose interest or become frustrated, diminishing the impact of your traditional advertising efforts.

Where to Test Website Loading Speed?

There are several free tools available for testing a website’s loading speed and performance. Google’s PageSpeed Insights and GTmetrix are popular options that provide comprehensive reports and actionable insights.

PageSpeed Insights, in particular, will provide you with a score ranging from 0 to 100, with colours indicating performance levels: green for excellent (90-100), yellow for fair to good (50-89), and red for poor (below 50). A higher score, represented by the colour green, indicates better performance.

We recommend that you test your website three times in order to obtain an accurate result.

Conclusion

Interaction to Next Paint (INP) is a critical metric that directly impacts user experience, search engine rankings, and the success of your law firm’s online presence. By understanding and optimising for INP, alongside other Google Core Web Vitals metrics, you can improve your website’s performance, attract more clients, and stay ahead of your competitors.

If you need assistance with your law firm’s website, don’t hesitate to reach out to our team. We help law firms optimise their website performance, whether it requires speeding up existing sites or redesigning them to provide a better user experience. We’ll assess your digital assets and put together a tailored plan of action to improve your online presence.