This factor is important in ranking our site in Google Page Speed Insights. Because on the one hand, it is related to the speed of the site, and on the other hand, it can incredibly affect the user experience of our audience. Do you want to know what time to interactive is? What role does it play in the user experience and SEO of the site, and how is it measured? We suggest you join us in continuing this article. At the end of this article, in addition to knowing what time to interactive is, you will also learn about time to interactive site improvement and optimization strategies.
What is time to interactive?
The simplest definition of TTI is the time it takes for a page to become interactive. But before we explain TTI in detail, we want to discuss the important concepts underlying site interactivity. These concepts include FCP, Event handler, and Response to user of less than 50 ms.
Define site interaction concepts.
- FCP, or First Contentful Paint, measures how often a page on our site starts displaying valuable content. The time to interactive is created after FCP. Regarding site speed standards, there should not be much distance between these two criteria.
- Event handler: Event Handlers are scripts executed automatically when an event occurs, such as when a user clicks. These scripts respond to an event by generating the required results, so if Event Handlers are not registered on our site, the site will be unable to respond to user input.
- The user response is less than 50 ms; to provide a good user experience, the user must interact with the site in less than 50 milliseconds. If the site has Long Tasks, this time will increase.
Definition of TTI about the concepts of interactivity
TTI is a factor that estimates the time between site loading and user interaction. Now, what is the relationship between site TTI and interactivity factors? In Response, we must say that the period we refer to in the definition of TTI is related to these three concepts we explained in the previous section.
Our site becomes interactive when it quickly provides valuable content to the user or responds to user interaction. The interval when a user clicks on our site, the site FCP, or the display of valuable content in less than 50 milliseconds (ideally), answered with the help of Event Handlers and user interaction, is called TTI. The free Google Page Speed Insights tool can easily measure the TTI value. In the following, we will get acquainted with the effect of this factor on SEO and site ranking.
The impact of time to interactive on SEO and site ranking
Sometimes SEOs focus so much on optimizing site loading speed that they are unaware of its impact on user interaction. There is no doubt that site speed optimization is one of the most important SEO technical factors. But sometimes over-optimization can negatively affect the user experience and consequently the SEO of the site! but how?
How does TTI affect the site user experience?
When the site speed is optimized regardless of its effect on user interaction, it loads as soon as the user clicks, but the user sees a loaded page! A page whose content is not yet usable and which the user cannot interactive with.
This is not good for the user experience and site SEO because it causes the user to repeatedly click on this blank page in frustration, so the result may be visible. Of course, these days, users do not have the patience to wait at all, which causes dissatisfaction and increases the site bounce rate.
What effect does TTI have on SEO and site ranking?
As we said in the previous section, users want their needs met quickly. When we have valuable and interactive content, users only stay on one site page for a long time. By default, the value of TTI should be a maximum of 3800 milliseconds. If our site’s TTI exceeds this value, users will not wait and will leave the site. As a result, our site experiences a sudden increase in bounce rates and a drop in rankings.
You may not believe it, but the TTI criterion accounts for about 15% of the site performance score. Optimizing a less than 3800 milliseconds TTI will significantly improve the site’s audience experience and SEO.
Improve site time to interactive and its relationship with other factors of Google Core Web Vitals
As you know, Google Core Vital Web includes some important factors related to site speed, which we considered necessary to examine the positive effects of site optimization on these factors:
Reduce TTI and improve FCP
We mentioned earlier that FCP measures how long it takes to load a page until it starts displaying valuable content. Since time to interactive is measured in terms of time after FCP, if we improve the site’s TTI, the time interval between FCP and TTI will be reduced. As a result, the site’s interactivity will increase, and the user experience will improve.
Optimize TTI and improve site FID rating.
The FID factor measures how long a page responds to the user’s first interaction. Both TTI and FID are related to site interactivity. If a page of our site is not interactive, it will not be ready to respond to user inputs. Therefore, improving the site’s TTI also increases the likelihood of improving the site’s FID score. But how can we optimize the site TTI?
To find the factors increasing the site’s TTI, there is a quick and free solution that we will teach in full in the next section.
The best technique for rapid identification of the time to interactive enhancement factors
There is a very simple, fast, and free method for properly analyzing how pages are interactive and identifying the factors that increase TTI: Use Lighthouse Audit in Google Chrome.
Lighthouse Audit Google Chrome
To get started, we need to enter the Chrome Performance panel. First, right-click on the desired page and select “Inspect”. Then enter the “Performance” section and click on “Reload”. We’ll have to wait for Chrome to display the Advisor screen below.
The page Chrome shows us is a detailed analysis of how the page works. We will see different tasks by clicking the “main” section. Each task displayed in gray with a red flag next to it is a Long task. If we move the mouse closer to this task, the execution time will be displayed. We can also click on “Bottom-Up” to see the exact description of the implementation of that task.
The main factor in increasing the site’s TTI is the JavaScript Long tasks. Long tasks usually take more than 50 milliseconds to run, and browsers cannot stop them while running; That is, they must be fully implemented.
Long tasks take considerable time on the main thread, and browsers can not cut them off while running. Finding and optimizing JavaScript Long Tasks can significantly improve site TTI. In the following, we will get acquainted with the methods of improving the site’s TTI.
Get acquainted with time to interactive site optimization solutions.
In this free SEO training article, we answered the question of what TTI is and thoroughly examined the effect of TTI on site SEO. Now it’s time to learn how to optimize it. To improve the site’s time to interactive, we have to go to JavaScript optimization; this way, we get results much faster. Here are some methods that can improve the effectiveness of time to interactive in SEO. These methods include:
1. Divide JavaScript code
JavaScript code segmentation has the advantage that instead of running all JS code in the browser simultaneously, only the code needed to respond and interact with the user in the first moments of entering the site is sent and executed.
2. Shrink and compress the code file
Using the compression method helps reduce the code’s file size. Shrinking the code file allows us to get the best results with the least time and energy. Regardless of whether the JS code is problematic, it is best to shrink and compress it.
3. Remove unnecessary Main Thread scripts
The operating system of Main Thread scripts is such that they prevent the personal scripts of the site from running on time. We need to identify important scripts, eliminate unnecessary ones, or plan to run them later. For example, pop-up and ad scripts are unimportant so that we can delete or delay them.
4. Use the resource hint to make initial connections
It is better to use preconnect and dns-prefetch to establish initial connection with the Main Thread servers and receive resources faster.
5. Optimize CSS files and important site images
We must optimize CSS files and important site images to improve the site’s interactivity metrics. SEO of CSS files and images effectively reduces the time to interactive time. To do this, we can delete unused code from CSS files, select efficient image formats, and remove unnecessary image pixels to reduce the size of the images.
6. Use Web Workers in the TTI optimization program
The nature of Web Workers is to run scripts in the background without affecting the Main Thread. So, using webworkers, you can run scripts in the background without affecting the main thread and help optimize long tasks.
7. Minimize the number of requests for the program
The number of requests for our application must be kept to a minimum. This helps prevent the creation of a chain of important requests and speeds up the loading of key resources.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best value of TTI?
Overall, a good TTI score is less than 3.8 seconds. If the site TTI is below 3.8 seconds, it offers a great user experience and a better SEO ranking.
Which instruments for measuring TTI are reliable?
The free Google Chrome Lighthouse and Web Page Test tools are the best and most reliable for measuring site time to interactive.
How can we optimize the value of TTI by optimizing images?
Using efficient image formats, removing unnecessary pixels, using inline images such as Base64 or SVG, reducing the size of image files, and using a CDN to deliver images faster can help improve the site’s TTI.
How to find long tasks?
One of the best tools to find these is Google Chrome Dev Tools.
Concluding remarks
We hope you are familiar with the concept of TTI, or time to interactive. This factor is very important in improving the site’s user experience and SEO ranking. Implementing the seven strategies we introduced to improve the site’s TTI will positively affect SEO.