Hey there and welcome back!
So how quickly does your website load? If you don’t know, that’s a problem. And if you don’t know how to check, that’s also a problem.
The good news is that there is a pretty easy way to check that out. It’s called Google PageSpeed Insights. This tool will run through a URL that you input and check for the page speed. It will give you a score and then tell you what you can do to improve that score. It’s a great way to check the loading time for any page.
So today let’s take a deeper dive into why page speed matters, what Google PageSpeed Insights is and how it can help you.
Before we start off, if you want to see more videos about ecommerce, digital marketing and other website related topics, be sure to hit the subscribe button and to ring the bell for notifications.
Let’s get started.
Why does page speed matter?
Page speed is everything in today’s world. If your website takes a long time to load, people are going to bail from your site.
According to Trinity Insight, 37 percent of people will leave your website if it takes more than five seconds to load. And 70 percent of people say that site speed does influence their purchasing decision.
And think about it. If a website took forever to load, would you stick around for it?
If your website is slow, other people are going to be doing the same thing. And that is going to kill your conversion rate. You’re going to be losing out on potential customers and clients, and that’s even before they even see what you do or what you sell. Needless to say, that’s not good.
Site speed might not be the only thing when it comes to converting people into being customers, but it is one of the first things that can turn people away if it’s not up to par.
What is Google PageSpeed Insights?
Google PageSpeed Insights is the quick and easy way to test out the speed for any webpage on your website. Simply enter in the URL of the page that you want to test and then hit enter and then it will spit out the results for you.
But it does more than give you some timing and a score. Instead, it tests the site on mobile and desktop, gives you screenshots of what the page looks like at different points in the loading process and even tells you what you can do to speed up your website.
Oh, and it’s completely free to use. That’s always a plus. It’s the quickest and easiest tool to test out your page speed.
Using Google PageSpeed Insights
Using Google PageSpeed Insights is incredibly easy. First you need to navigate to the website. From there you can enter in any URL from your website to test out. A good place to start is your home URL.
When you hit enter Google will load up the page and take note of the results. This part might take a few moments, even if you have just a simple HTML page.
Once it’s loaded you’ll see a few things. First you’ll see the score your page received as well as a breakdown of whether it’s good, okay or bad. After that you’ll see a breakdown of the time it took to do different things, like when the first items appeared on the screen, how long it took the page to be usable and how long it might take between an input and it appearing on the screen.
Then it will alert you to a few opportunities you have to make the page faster. And then it will also show a few diagnostic things, though they don’t really have much bearing on your page speed score.
And all of this is also sorted by mobile or desktop version. There’s a good chance you’ll have wildly different results between the two platforms.
Fixing the errors
Now, when you get your page speed score back, don’t worry specifically about the number you see. The exact number doesn’t matter. Instead, the color, red, yellow and green are really what matter the most.
A score in the red indicates that you need to fix things as soon as you can. A score in the yellow range means that you should probably look at the errors and fix them so you can get a green score. And a green score means you’re pretty much good to go.
One of the good things about Google PageSpeed Insights is that it will show you actionable items on what you need to fix on your website. And it will likely give you the solution you need to implement.
For example, if you come across an error about eliminating render-blocking resources, it’s going to tell you to try and defer those resources so that they don’t block the browser and it will link off to how you can do that.
In short, it makes it very easy to spot and fix errors that are hurting your page load times.
Be sure to check again
Finally, make sure to check back every now and then. Checking every few weeks can help you make sure that your site is always staying fast. Sometimes things change without you knowing, especially if you use a content management system.
So set a reminder to come back to see if your website is still fast or if there are things that you need to fix.
We’ll talk more about this on Wednesday, but if you use WordPress, the Google Site Kit plugin also displays PageSpeed Insights stats in your dashboard, which can be a big help.
But like a lot of things with websites, page speed is an ongoing process.
Up Next
So what questions do you have about Google PageSpeed Insights? Have you used it before? How did it help your website? Be sure to leave your questions and answers down in the comments section below.
On Wednesday, we’ll be discussing how you can speed up your WordPress website. And on Friday we’ll be discussing how you can speed up a website in general.
To see those videos and more videos on ecommerce, digital marketing, web design and other website related topics, be sure to hit the subscribe button and to ring the bell for notifications.
Until next time, I wish you and your business the best of luck!
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