Website performance has become a critical factor for success in today’s digital landscape. With increasing competition, you need your website to load fast and perform well in order to attract and retain visitors. This is where Google PageSpeed Insights comes in.
PageSpeed Insights is a free tool by Google that analyzes the performance of your website and provides actionable recommendations on how to optimize it. Using PageSpeed Insights can help you significantly improve your website speed and user experience.
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Key Takeaways
- PageSpeed Insights evaluates website performance and provides optimization suggestions.
- It examines page load times, page size, caching, images, server response times, and more.
- The tool provides scores for both mobile and desktop versions of a website.
- Optimizing as per PageSpeed suggestions can improve website speed by up to 85%.
- Faster websites have higher conversions, lower bounce rates, and improved SEO.
- PageSpeed Insights should be used regularly for performance checks and monitoring improvements.
How PageSpeed Insights Works
PageSpeed Insights examines the performance of a web page from two perspectives – mobile and desktop. It analyzes various factors that affect load times and performance. Some key elements it looks at are:
- Page load times – The time taken for the page to become interactive. Faster page loads improve user experience.
- Page size – The total size of page content in KB. Lighter pages load faster.
- Caching – Reuse of resources stored in cache memory. Enables faster load times.
- Images – Total size and encoding format of images on the page. Optimized images load faster.
- Server response times – Time taken by the server to respond to page requests. Faster response times improve performance.
- Minified resources – Reducing the file size of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript resources without affecting functionality. Removes unnecessary data and whitespace.
- Unused CSS – Removal of non-essential CSS rules to reduce file size.
Based on its audit, PageSpeed provides performance scores for both mobile and desktop on a scale of 0 to 100.
- 0 to 49 is considered poor performance.
- 50 to 89 is average.
- 90 to 100 is considered fast.
It also highlights optimization opportunities and provides actionable suggestions to fix them.
Why PageSpeed Insights is Important
With web performance being a ranking factor and user expectation, PageSpeed has become invaluable for businesses today. Here are some key reasons why you should use it:
- It helps you identify performance bottlenecks on your website.
- Optimizing as per its suggestions can help speed up your website by up to 85%.
- Faster websites have higher ad revenues and conversion rates.
- Improves user experience and reduces bounce rates.
- Boosts SEO rankings and visibility in search results.
- Provides performance benchmarks to track improvements over time.
- It is a free and easy tool from Google.
- Competitor analysis to compare website speed.
Simply put, PageSpeed Insights helps you optimize one of the most crucial factors in digital marketing today – your website speed and performance. Ignoring it can substantially impact your business results and revenue.
How to Use PageSpeed Insights
Using PageSpeed Insights is very simple. Just follow these steps:
- Go to https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/
- Enter the URL of your website in the search bar.
- Click “Analyze”. PageSpeed will now audit your website performance.
- Once the analysis completes, you will see performance scores for both Mobile and Desktop.
- Check the “Opportunities” section for optimization suggestions.
- Click on each suggestion to understand how to implement it.
- Retest after making improvements to monitor the impact.
You can test multiple URLs of a website for comprehensive performance checks. For accurate results, test pages that have been live for a while and have Googlebot access.
PageSpeed Optimization Strategies
Here are some key optimization strategies to improve performance as per PageSpeed Insights suggestions:
Improve Server Response Times
- Switch to faster web hosting for better infrastructure capability.
- Enable compression for server responses.
- Upgrade to HTTP/2 protocol.
- Cache server requests using Redis or Varnish.
- Minify HTML, CSS, JS, and JSON resources.
- Optimize database and query performance.
Reduce Page Size
- Compress images and enable lazy loading.
- Remove unused JavaScript and CSS code.
- Eliminate render-blocking resources.
- Minify HTML, CSS, JS and SVG files.
- Use cookie-free domains for static content.
- Defer non-critical JS.
Cache Resources
- Set up browser caching for static assets.
- Add cache headers like Cache-Control.
- Configure CDN caching rules.
- Cache server requests with Redis.
- Cache database queries.
Optimize Images
- Compress JPEG, PNG, GIF, and SVG images.
- Convert large PNGs to JPEGs.
- Use responsive images via srcset.
- Enable WebP image format.
- Lazy load offscreen and lower priority images.
- Remove image metadata.
- Serve scaled images instead of resizing in HTML.
Improve Rendering
- Eliminate render-blocking JS & CSS.
- Inline critical CSS.
- Add async/defer attributes to non-essential JS.
- Server Push or preload critical assets.
- Reduce DOM depth and complexity.
- Load code asynchronously.
Enable Caching
- Set cache expiry times in headers.
- Configure CDN and browser caching rules.
- Fingerprint static assets for efficient caching.
- Cache API responses and database queries.
- Use service workers for offline caching.
Monitoring Improvements with PageSpeed Insights
It is important to keep testing your website with PageSpeed after deploying optimizations. Here are some ways to monitor improvements:
- Retest optimized pages – Verify if scores and metrics have improved for mobile and desktop.
- Compare historical records – Check PageSpeed Insights records to compare before/after optimization scores.
- Set performance budgets – Define speed KPIs as per business goals to meet.
- Factor in real user data – Consider metrics from Google Analytics along with PageSpeed scores for complete performance picture.
- Prioritize recommendations – Identify high impact suggestions for quick wins vs long term goals.
- Share reports with stakeholders – Keep teams informed on progress with data-backed reports.
- Automate monitoring – Use scripts or tools like Lighthouse CI to monitor website periodically.
- Conduct audits before launches – Check performance prior to and post website changes, launches.
Regular PageSpeed monitoring and incremental optimizations can help achieve long term speed gains. It enables data-driven decisions to improve metrics that impact revenue and growth.
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FAQs
What is the importance of the mobile vs desktop scores?
Google gives more weightage to mobile scores since most users today access websites from phones and tablets. However, optimizing for both mobile and desktop is important to ensure a consistent fast experience.
Can I completely rely on PageSpeed scores as a metric?
PageSpeed provides a good reference point but should be combined with real user data from analytics. Monitor user behavior metrics like bounce rates, engagement times before and after optimizations.
How often should I test my website with PageSpeed?
Ideally, you should test your important pages on PageSpeed Insights on a weekly or monthly basis. You can also do spot checks after major website changes or traffic surges.
What is the best score I should target on PageSpeed?
Aim for at least 90+ on mobile and 85+ on desktop for optimal speed. However, take into account your business objectives, user data, and prioritize fixes as per their revenue impact potential.
What are some quick wins to boost my PageSpeed scores?
Some quick optimizations that can show good improvements are – responsive images, deferred JS, minification, compression, caching, removing unused code, CDNs and reducing server response times.
Conclusion
PageSpeed Insights is a highly useful and reliable tool to measure and enhance your website’s performance. By regularly monitoring scores and implementing its recommendations, you can delight users, boost conversions, improve SEO and reduce infrastructure costs. The tool enables you to make data-driven decisions to identify and fix speed bottlenecks.
Speed optimization is an ongoing process. Use PageSpeed insights combined with analytics to set performance budgets, track long term improvements and align website speed with your business goals. Faster websites are imperative for success today. Use PageSpeed insights to unlock the performance potential of your website.
Shane Galvin is the founder of Blue Ocean Web Care, a WordPress maintenance and optimization company based in Rochester, NY. With 15+ years of experience in WordPress site security, speed optimization, and SEO, Shane utilizes his expertise to help clients build effective websites. His ultimate goal is to build fast, user-friendly websites that instill confidence and trust for clients.
