SEO in the AI Era: Fast Sites Win - Why Page Speed Matters in an AI-First World

Written by:

Jeff Selig

Edited by:

Tyler Rouwhorst

Fact Checked by:

Iris Wang

Reviewed by:

Kevin Young

A fast website improves user experience, rankings, and your content’s ability to be crawled by AI tools.

Let’s face it—nobody likes a slow site. Not your users, not Google, and definitely not AI crawlers trying to scan your content.

Site speed isn’t just a tech issue. It affects visibility, rankings, bounce rates, and even whether your content gets picked up in AI-powered search results.

Here’s Why Speed Matters More Than Ever:

AI tools browsing your site won’t wait around if your page is slow to load

Google considers Core Web Vitals (like load time and layout stability) when ranking pages

Users expect your content to appear instantly—or they’re gone

Easy Wins to Speed Things Up

Compress your images: Use tools like TinyPNG or Squoosh to shrink image sizes without sacrificing quality

Switch to next-gen formats: WebP and AVIF offer smaller files with better performance than JPG or PNG

Lazy-load below-the-fold images: Don’t load images until the user scrolls to them

Trim the fat: Remove unused scripts and plugins, and minify your code

Use caching and a CDN: This speeds up global access and reduces server load

Check Your Site’s Speed Score

Google’s PageSpeed Insights and Search Console can show you what’s slowing you down.

Look for suggestions like reducing render-blocking scripts, fixing cumulative layout shift (CLS), or shortening time to first byte (TTFB).

Speed = Visibility + Conversions

Faster-loading pages get crawled more efficiently, rank higher, and convert better.

Even AI assistants fetching real-time info from your site benefit from fast performance.

Want to make your site lightning-fast?

Overdrive helps brands tune up their web performance for humans, search engines, and AI bots alike.

Because in today’s digital world, fast is the new findable.

‍

Next Up: In the next post, we’ll show how to turn AI into your SEO sidekick with smart tools for writing metadata, generating content ideas, and more.

July 19, 2025

Organic Media

Organic Media

SEO in the AI Era: Fast Sites Win - Why Page Speed Matters in an AI-First World

A fast website improves user experience, rankings, and your content’s ability to be crawled by AI tools.

Download the guide to:

Let’s face it—nobody likes a slow site. Not your users, not Google, and definitely not AI crawlers trying to scan your content.

Site speed isn’t just a tech issue. It affects visibility, rankings, bounce rates, and even whether your content gets picked up in AI-powered search results.

Here’s Why Speed Matters More Than Ever:

AI tools browsing your site won’t wait around if your page is slow to load

Google considers Core Web Vitals (like load time and layout stability) when ranking pages

Users expect your content to appear instantly—or they’re gone

Easy Wins to Speed Things Up

Compress your images: Use tools like TinyPNG or Squoosh to shrink image sizes without sacrificing quality

Switch to next-gen formats: WebP and AVIF offer smaller files with better performance than JPG or PNG

Lazy-load below-the-fold images: Don’t load images until the user scrolls to them

Trim the fat: Remove unused scripts and plugins, and minify your code

Use caching and a CDN: This speeds up global access and reduces server load

Check Your Site’s Speed Score

Google’s PageSpeed Insights and Search Console can show you what’s slowing you down.

Look for suggestions like reducing render-blocking scripts, fixing cumulative layout shift (CLS), or shortening time to first byte (TTFB).

Speed = Visibility + Conversions

Faster-loading pages get crawled more efficiently, rank higher, and convert better.

Even AI assistants fetching real-time info from your site benefit from fast performance.

Want to make your site lightning-fast?

Overdrive helps brands tune up their web performance for humans, search engines, and AI bots alike.

Because in today’s digital world, fast is the new findable.

‍

Next Up: In the next post, we’ll show how to turn AI into your SEO sidekick with smart tools for writing metadata, generating content ideas, and more.

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Organic Media

SEO in the AI Era: Fast Sites Win - Why Page Speed Matters in an AI-First World

A fast website improves user experience, rankings, and your content’s ability to be crawled by AI tools.

Donwload PDF

Download the guide to:

Let’s face it—nobody likes a slow site. Not your users, not Google, and definitely not AI crawlers trying to scan your content.

Site speed isn’t just a tech issue. It affects visibility, rankings, bounce rates, and even whether your content gets picked up in AI-powered search results.

Here’s Why Speed Matters More Than Ever:

AI tools browsing your site won’t wait around if your page is slow to load

Google considers Core Web Vitals (like load time and layout stability) when ranking pages

Users expect your content to appear instantly—or they’re gone

Easy Wins to Speed Things Up

Compress your images: Use tools like TinyPNG or Squoosh to shrink image sizes without sacrificing quality

Switch to next-gen formats: WebP and AVIF offer smaller files with better performance than JPG or PNG

Lazy-load below-the-fold images: Don’t load images until the user scrolls to them

Trim the fat: Remove unused scripts and plugins, and minify your code

Use caching and a CDN: This speeds up global access and reduces server load

Check Your Site’s Speed Score

Google’s PageSpeed Insights and Search Console can show you what’s slowing you down.

Look for suggestions like reducing render-blocking scripts, fixing cumulative layout shift (CLS), or shortening time to first byte (TTFB).

Speed = Visibility + Conversions

Faster-loading pages get crawled more efficiently, rank higher, and convert better.

Even AI assistants fetching real-time info from your site benefit from fast performance.

Want to make your site lightning-fast?

Overdrive helps brands tune up their web performance for humans, search engines, and AI bots alike.

Because in today’s digital world, fast is the new findable.

‍

Next Up: In the next post, we’ll show how to turn AI into your SEO sidekick with smart tools for writing metadata, generating content ideas, and more.

No items found.

Organic Media

SEO in the AI Era: Fast Sites Win - Why Page Speed Matters in an AI-First World

A fast website improves user experience, rankings, and your content’s ability to be crawled by AI tools.

Key Insights From Our Research

Let’s face it—nobody likes a slow site. Not your users, not Google, and definitely not AI crawlers trying to scan your content.

Site speed isn’t just a tech issue. It affects visibility, rankings, bounce rates, and even whether your content gets picked up in AI-powered search results.

Here’s Why Speed Matters More Than Ever:

AI tools browsing your site won’t wait around if your page is slow to load

Google considers Core Web Vitals (like load time and layout stability) when ranking pages

Users expect your content to appear instantly—or they’re gone

Easy Wins to Speed Things Up

Compress your images: Use tools like TinyPNG or Squoosh to shrink image sizes without sacrificing quality

Switch to next-gen formats: WebP and AVIF offer smaller files with better performance than JPG or PNG

Lazy-load below-the-fold images: Don’t load images until the user scrolls to them

Trim the fat: Remove unused scripts and plugins, and minify your code

Use caching and a CDN: This speeds up global access and reduces server load

Check Your Site’s Speed Score

Google’s PageSpeed Insights and Search Console can show you what’s slowing you down.

Look for suggestions like reducing render-blocking scripts, fixing cumulative layout shift (CLS), or shortening time to first byte (TTFB).

Speed = Visibility + Conversions

Faster-loading pages get crawled more efficiently, rank higher, and convert better.

Even AI assistants fetching real-time info from your site benefit from fast performance.

Want to make your site lightning-fast?

Overdrive helps brands tune up their web performance for humans, search engines, and AI bots alike.

Because in today’s digital world, fast is the new findable.

‍

Next Up: In the next post, we’ll show how to turn AI into your SEO sidekick with smart tools for writing metadata, generating content ideas, and more.

Organic Media

SEO in the AI Era: Fast Sites Win - Why Page Speed Matters in an AI-First World

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Organic Media

SEO in the AI Era: Fast Sites Win - Why Page Speed Matters in an AI-First World

Let’s face it—nobody likes a slow site. Not your users, not Google, and definitely not AI crawlers trying to scan your content.

Site speed isn’t just a tech issue. It affects visibility, rankings, bounce rates, and even whether your content gets picked up in AI-powered search results.

Here’s Why Speed Matters More Than Ever:

AI tools browsing your site won’t wait around if your page is slow to load

Google considers Core Web Vitals (like load time and layout stability) when ranking pages

Users expect your content to appear instantly—or they’re gone

Easy Wins to Speed Things Up

Compress your images: Use tools like TinyPNG or Squoosh to shrink image sizes without sacrificing quality

Switch to next-gen formats: WebP and AVIF offer smaller files with better performance than JPG or PNG

Lazy-load below-the-fold images: Don’t load images until the user scrolls to them

Trim the fat: Remove unused scripts and plugins, and minify your code

Use caching and a CDN: This speeds up global access and reduces server load

Check Your Site’s Speed Score

Google’s PageSpeed Insights and Search Console can show you what’s slowing you down.

Look for suggestions like reducing render-blocking scripts, fixing cumulative layout shift (CLS), or shortening time to first byte (TTFB).

Speed = Visibility + Conversions

Faster-loading pages get crawled more efficiently, rank higher, and convert better.

Even AI assistants fetching real-time info from your site benefit from fast performance.

Want to make your site lightning-fast?

Overdrive helps brands tune up their web performance for humans, search engines, and AI bots alike.

Because in today’s digital world, fast is the new findable.

‍

Next Up: In the next post, we’ll show how to turn AI into your SEO sidekick with smart tools for writing metadata, generating content ideas, and more.

Organic Media

SEO in the AI Era: Fast Sites Win - Why Page Speed Matters in an AI-First World

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SEO in the AI Era: Fast Sites Win - Why Page Speed Matters in an AI-First World

Let’s face it—nobody likes a slow site. Not your users, not Google, and definitely not AI crawlers trying to scan your content.

Site speed isn’t just a tech issue. It affects visibility, rankings, bounce rates, and even whether your content gets picked up in AI-powered search results.

Here’s Why Speed Matters More Than Ever:

AI tools browsing your site won’t wait around if your page is slow to load

Google considers Core Web Vitals (like load time and layout stability) when ranking pages

Users expect your content to appear instantly—or they’re gone

Easy Wins to Speed Things Up

Compress your images: Use tools like TinyPNG or Squoosh to shrink image sizes without sacrificing quality

Switch to next-gen formats: WebP and AVIF offer smaller files with better performance than JPG or PNG

Lazy-load below-the-fold images: Don’t load images until the user scrolls to them

Trim the fat: Remove unused scripts and plugins, and minify your code

Use caching and a CDN: This speeds up global access and reduces server load

Check Your Site’s Speed Score

Google’s PageSpeed Insights and Search Console can show you what’s slowing you down.

Look for suggestions like reducing render-blocking scripts, fixing cumulative layout shift (CLS), or shortening time to first byte (TTFB).

Speed = Visibility + Conversions

Faster-loading pages get crawled more efficiently, rank higher, and convert better.

Even AI assistants fetching real-time info from your site benefit from fast performance.

Want to make your site lightning-fast?

Overdrive helps brands tune up their web performance for humans, search engines, and AI bots alike.

Because in today’s digital world, fast is the new findable.

‍

Next Up: In the next post, we’ll show how to turn AI into your SEO sidekick with smart tools for writing metadata, generating content ideas, and more.