Google, SEO

Be Found and Seen: Understanding how Rendering Affects your SEO Performance 

January 16, 2026 Comments Off on Be Found and Seen: Understanding how Rendering Affects your SEO Performance 

In our previous blog, Rendering Simplified we explained what rendering means, now we shall see how rendering affects SEO performance of your site and its pages. This knowledge is crucial for digital marketers for it will help them make key decisions about their websites. Decisions that will affect the site’s visibility and performance. 

How Rendering Directly Affects User Experience?

First, put yourself in the shoes of a user and note what kind of website immediately catches your attention and what annoys you.

Good Website Features:

  • Fast and does not lag. 
  • Easy to navigate
  • Looks professional/funky/friendly (depending upon what the purpose of the website is)
  • Functions equally well on your phone as well as your PC

Annoying Website Features:

  •  Slow and lags. 
  • Difficult to navigate
  • Looks boring or is too loud 
  • Does not function equally well on all gadgets

Every feature mentioned above is related to rendering. Rendering roughly means “presenting” in our context. Therefore every attribute of the website relative to how it is perceived is a part of the process of rendering. 

Let us now address the above issues:

Loading Speed

If your site takes a long time to load, the bounce rate will increase. Bounce rate refers to the number of users who leave your site after visiting only one page or without taking any action like making a purchase or filling a form. The number of users engaging with the site is called conversion rate. Loading time and bounce rate is directly proportional. Higher the time taken, more the users who will not engage. 

How to make your site faster?

1.Defer JavaScript 

In the HTML use the defer tag on the JavaScript, to tell the browser to download the script in parallel with HTML parsing (parsing refers to the process in which the browser analyses the HTML and constructs the DOM)  but to not execute it until the parsing is complete.   

Explanation:

  • Every time the browser encounters a <script> tag in your HTML, it stops going through the document, that is, stops parsing.
  • Only when the script is downloaded and executed does the HTML parsing resume. 
  • If you use the defer tag (can be used on any script, here we are talking only about the JavaScript), HTML parsing and downloading of scripts occur simultaneously.
  • JavaScript is executed only after HTML parsing is complete.  
  • The users see meaningful content on the site sooner (because initial layout has been processed), without the JavaScript having fully loaded, thus making the site feel responsive. 

2. Use Server Side Rendering if SEO Performance is Crucial For Your Site

Now we shall look at two methods of rendering, Server Side Rendering (SSR) and Client Side Rendering (CSR).

SSR vs CSR Table
Features Server Side Rendering Client Side Rendering
What Happens The server generates the complete HTML along with the CSS and JavaScript. The client’s browser simply then displays the fully rendered page. Server sends minimal HTML file with links to CSS and JavaScript to the client’s browser. The client’s browser then renders the page.
Benefits
  • Search engines can crawl and understand the pages easily, since the HTML is completely rendered. This improves rankings and visibility.
  • Loading time is reduced. (Average speed of a website to rank on the first page of Google is 1.65 seconds)
  • Users can view instant updates made.
  • Great for dynamic websites.
  • Since the rendering is handled by the client’s browser, the load on the server is reduced.
Downsides
  • Load on the server is high as it is responsible for the entire rendering process.
  • Interactivity of the website is low.
  • Immediate updates cannot be shown (page has to be refreshed).
  • More server resources are required, memory usage is high. Therefore it is costly.
  • Affects crawlability – indexing because not everything is visible to the crawlers (they access the HTML file, which in this case is minimal).
  • Loading time is high.
  • Caching is not possible until the page is fully rendered, slower devices will experience issues.
  • If the client’s browser has JavaScript disabled, users will see a blank screen.
When to Use
  • Content-heavy websites with low interactivity.
  • Creating a landing page.
  • When ranking higher and SEO is important.
  • Web apps, like chatting apps and social media platforms.
  • Sites that require information to be updated quickly, like e-commerce apps.

3. Make Sure Your Website Functions Well on Mobile and other Small screen Devices

Google ranks those pages higher that are optimised for phones, it is called mobile first indexing. Here’s how to make your site mobile-friendly:

  • Use a responsive web design that rescales the website according to the device
  • Make sure your site is speedy (has less load time)
  • Pay attention to your web design, make sure it works well on a smaller screen.
  • Use Meta tag, to resize your content.
  • Avoid cluttering your pages with too much information and elements closely placed together. 
  • Use HTML5 and CSS instead of Adobe Flash. Adobe Flash is not compatible with mobile devices. 
  • Use Chrome’s Lighthouse to test how well your page does on a mobile.

Conclusion

Rendering is the most important process that affects your site’s SEO process. Crawling, which is the method of discovery of a site by a bot, takes place only when the site can be rendered by the bots. You have to make sure that the bot can easily see most of your crucial content. It is advisable to have your crucial content in the HTML file itself. Keeping in mind the intention and goals of your website, choose the right method of rendering (SSR, CSR) and do not forget to make it as mobile friendly as possible.

If you want to know all there is to know about becoming an amazing digital marketer, visit our website https://gyaner.com/ to learn about the courses we provide. Gyaner is the best digital marketing institute in Hyderabad. We have a team of experienced faculty offering intelligently crafted courses and hands-on training. We offer placement assistance and interview training as well. 

Here’s hoping your bounce rates transform into conversion rates 😉

FAQ's

Rendering is the process in which your site and pages are made visible to your users. If your site is slow, uncrawlable by bots, not mobile friendly, it affects SEO.

Use server side rendering if your site needs to be ranked. Make sure your JavaScript is not heavy, minify it as much as possible by deleting unnecessary lines. Always put the information of your most meaningful content in the HTML itself and make use of the defer tag on JavaScript to decrease perceived loading time. 

When your site requires a lot of interactivity and you want it to feel like an app. Remember sites using CSR do not rank high.

When ranking is your page’s top priority. Use it to design landing pages and content heavy pages that do not require a lot of interactivity. 

No, you can achieve a degree of interactivity using SSR too, you have to use the JavaScript for this purpose.



Minimise JavaScript, CSS and image sizes, reduce the number of plugins, use browser cache, reduce external links, and use mobile-first code.