How to evaluate and improve page speed

According to Google recommendations, the first block of information on the page should appear no later than 2.5 seconds. This figure reflects not so much the wishes of the search engine as the requirements of consumers.

People are not ready to wait at the monitors for tens of seconds until the content appears on the screen. Moreover, if the page takes longer than 10 seconds to load, it is a signal that there is a problem and a reason for a potential client to leave.

For these reasons, business owners and administrators are looking at how to optimize page speed.

In this article, we will analyze what website speed is, why it is important to optimize website loading speed and what tools will help to speed up the page loading.

Picture 1 of How to evaluate and improve page speed Picture 1 of How to evaluate and improve page speed

What is a good page speed?

Page load speed is the time it takes to display the content of a page in the browser. It is the period of time between clicking on a link and the moment when you see the content on the monitor.

What is considered a normal website loading speed?

Google classifies sites into three types:

with good loading speed (less than 1 second);
with average speed (1-2.1 seconds);
with poor speed (more than 2.1 seconds).

Indicators for the mobile version of the site are below and are also divided into three types:

with good speed (less than 1.6 seconds);
with average speed (from 1.6 to 3 seconds);
with poor speed (more than 3 seconds).

Google imposes search sanctions only on sites with poor speed, so if the page loading speed is average - there is no reason to panic yet.

How to check page loading speed

To ensure a correct website loading speed test, it is necessary to carry out a number of diagnostic measures, not just to learn how to check the page speed. Considering all the above, it will take a lot of time for a webmaster to check the website speed manually. Therefore it is vital to automate the process of checking website speed. Especially when you need to check the site loading speed not from one place, but from several places around the world.

If you want to know how to test page loading speed you can use the website speed optimization service Lounge Lizard, which is mainly designed for daily round-the-clock monitoring of a website or server. If you use this service to check the site speed, it will allow you to perform many checks in a short time and at the same time. Combined with the statistics service that this service provides, it will be easy to check various metrics to prevent problems with loading speed.

How to increase the page speed?

Compress pages of large size

To do this, you can use the GZip tool. It reduces the amount of data that the browser transfers to the user. So you can reduce the amount of data and increase the speed of loading the site.

Change the format of images

Large images slow down page loading, so we recommend using images in JPEG 2000, JPEG XR, and WebP formats. Images in these formats will load faster and consume less traffic than PNG and JPEG.

Reduce the number of requests from the browser to the server

Extra elements increase the loading time of pages. There are several ways to reduce the loading time:

remove unnecessary elements that overload the site (images, JavaScript files);
combine some elements into CSS-sprite;
use caching (the browser will save data to the computer and load them during repeated visits to the site).

How to improve page speed on mobile?

1. Create a lightweight mobile design

You should aim to directly improve the mobile page speed, not just the loading speed of your PC website, and hope that this will have an impact on the mobile version.

2. Optimize everything

When looking to improve mobile site speed, you should aim to optimize every element that makes up the pages of your site. This includes optimization:

Images.

Compress images and photos;

Replace animated GIFs with videos;

Position responsive images at the correct size;

Use WebP images;

Use CDN.

Fonts.

Avoid invisible text when loading the font;

Use one or two simple fonts.

CSS

Minimize CSS;

Remove critical CSS;

Optimize background images with media queries;

Set aside non-critical CSS.

Javascript

Apply instant loading;

Remove code that is not used;

3. Use browser caching.

Browser caching is a method of optimizing mobile site speed that can make a big difference.

When your site loads, it fetches resources such as loading each page element before using HTML5 and the entire coding infrastructure.

This is really important!

If you spend time and money on attracting potential customers, but the site is slow, they are uncomfortable using it, and they leave it. As a result, you lose not only sales but also money invested in marketing.

What is equally important - the entrepreneur suffers reputational losses. A dissatisfied customer eventually makes an order elsewhere, and he will have a negative opinion of your company. As a result, page loading speed is an important metric for any online store, because a site that works slowly generates a number of problems for business.