How to speed up a website
Posted: Wed Dec 11, 2024 8:51 am
The faster the better. Below is a list of the main benefits of speeding up your page:
Ranking factor - It is easy to see that page speed is one of many ranking factors that affect its position. Faster loading of a website means greater user satisfaction and a greater chance of improving the position in search results.
Improved Quality Score - Another advantage is the improvement in quality that occurs in Google Ads campaigns . We are talking about the quality of the landing page. The better the quality score, the greater the chances that our ad will be above the competition and cost less.
Reducing the bounce rate - Needless to say, if the page loads too slowly, it will generate bounces. The user will not even see the page, but will already leave it and will certainly use the offer of the competition, which respects his time by serving him an optimized website.
Improved conversions - It goes without saying that the sooner a user receives information, the more likely they are to convert. This applies to any channel (organic traffic, advertising, social media, etc.).
User satisfaction - It is very important. Everyone wants the page they visit to load as quickly as possible. It is therefore worth making a good impression and surprising users with the speed and fluidity of our website.
Faster indexing of the page by robots - Google robots crawl and index faster pages better. It is worth mentioning that robots may skip sites that weigh a lot, thus delaying their inclusion in the index. (You can read more about indexing in the article: What is Crawl Budget and why does it have such an impact on SEO? )
Website Speed Test
Before I tell you how to speed up a page, I will briefly discuss the tools that can help you analyze its speed and get a list of the elements that affect the slow loading time of a page. The tools mentioned below are free.
Google PageSpeed Insights
As the name suggests, this is a Google tool that analyzes the speed of a website. Google PageSpeed Insights allows you to easily and quickly analyze each page, determining its performance on both computers and mobile devices (smartphones).
To test the speed of our website, we enter its URL and click the analyze button. As a result of the test, we see a report containing a lot of useful information. An important section in the report is a list of elements that adversely affect the fast operation of our website and recommended solutions.
If you want to learn more about this tool, what exactly the report shows, what the scoring looks like and how you can improve individual elements, I refer you to the book SEO Playbook by Sławek Czajkowski, in which I had the pleasure of describing this tool in detail.
Google PageSpeed Insights - test for mobile and desktop devices
Google PageSpeed Insights Page Speed Test
In its current version, Google PageSpeed Insights also skype database shows links to dedicated guides for popular CMS systems. Depending on the problem that occurs on your site, you will receive a link to a guide with instructions on how to solve it. Thanks to this, you receive instructions on how to speed up WordPress or Magento.
guidelines on how to speed up your WordPress and Magento site
WordPress/Magento Guidelines
As Google announced in mid-June 2021, it will begin rolling out an update to Core Web Vitals focused on performance, security, and usability on mobile sites. The current factors will be less important, and their role will be to complement the main components. Factors important in Core Web Vitals:
Largest Contentful Paint ( LCP ) - A metric that measures the time it takes to render the largest block of text/image. Ideally, LPC should appear within 2.5 seconds of the page starting to load.
First Input Delay ( FID ) - Measures the time from the user's first interaction with the page to the moment the browser is able to process that event. Ideally, FID should be less than 100 milliseconds.
Cumulative Layout Shift ( CLS ) - measures the visual shift of elements during page load. That is, when a visible element changes its position. The CLS score should be less than 0.1.
PageSpeed Core Web Vitals
PageSpeed Core Web Vitals
GTmetrix
Another tool that we can use to test the performance of our website is GTmetrix . It stands out in that in the report, the analyzed website receives two scores for page loading speed. The first is determined based on Google guidelines, and the second on Yahoo guidelines. As a result, we receive personalized guidelines for our website and can analyze the loaded resources.
It is also worth mentioning that the test is conducted from a server in Canada, so the distance between it and our website's server will translate into longer loading times for all resources.
Ranking factor - It is easy to see that page speed is one of many ranking factors that affect its position. Faster loading of a website means greater user satisfaction and a greater chance of improving the position in search results.
Improved Quality Score - Another advantage is the improvement in quality that occurs in Google Ads campaigns . We are talking about the quality of the landing page. The better the quality score, the greater the chances that our ad will be above the competition and cost less.
Reducing the bounce rate - Needless to say, if the page loads too slowly, it will generate bounces. The user will not even see the page, but will already leave it and will certainly use the offer of the competition, which respects his time by serving him an optimized website.
Improved conversions - It goes without saying that the sooner a user receives information, the more likely they are to convert. This applies to any channel (organic traffic, advertising, social media, etc.).
User satisfaction - It is very important. Everyone wants the page they visit to load as quickly as possible. It is therefore worth making a good impression and surprising users with the speed and fluidity of our website.
Faster indexing of the page by robots - Google robots crawl and index faster pages better. It is worth mentioning that robots may skip sites that weigh a lot, thus delaying their inclusion in the index. (You can read more about indexing in the article: What is Crawl Budget and why does it have such an impact on SEO? )
Website Speed Test
Before I tell you how to speed up a page, I will briefly discuss the tools that can help you analyze its speed and get a list of the elements that affect the slow loading time of a page. The tools mentioned below are free.
Google PageSpeed Insights
As the name suggests, this is a Google tool that analyzes the speed of a website. Google PageSpeed Insights allows you to easily and quickly analyze each page, determining its performance on both computers and mobile devices (smartphones).
To test the speed of our website, we enter its URL and click the analyze button. As a result of the test, we see a report containing a lot of useful information. An important section in the report is a list of elements that adversely affect the fast operation of our website and recommended solutions.
If you want to learn more about this tool, what exactly the report shows, what the scoring looks like and how you can improve individual elements, I refer you to the book SEO Playbook by Sławek Czajkowski, in which I had the pleasure of describing this tool in detail.
Google PageSpeed Insights - test for mobile and desktop devices
Google PageSpeed Insights Page Speed Test
In its current version, Google PageSpeed Insights also skype database shows links to dedicated guides for popular CMS systems. Depending on the problem that occurs on your site, you will receive a link to a guide with instructions on how to solve it. Thanks to this, you receive instructions on how to speed up WordPress or Magento.
guidelines on how to speed up your WordPress and Magento site
WordPress/Magento Guidelines
As Google announced in mid-June 2021, it will begin rolling out an update to Core Web Vitals focused on performance, security, and usability on mobile sites. The current factors will be less important, and their role will be to complement the main components. Factors important in Core Web Vitals:
Largest Contentful Paint ( LCP ) - A metric that measures the time it takes to render the largest block of text/image. Ideally, LPC should appear within 2.5 seconds of the page starting to load.
First Input Delay ( FID ) - Measures the time from the user's first interaction with the page to the moment the browser is able to process that event. Ideally, FID should be less than 100 milliseconds.
Cumulative Layout Shift ( CLS ) - measures the visual shift of elements during page load. That is, when a visible element changes its position. The CLS score should be less than 0.1.
PageSpeed Core Web Vitals
PageSpeed Core Web Vitals
GTmetrix
Another tool that we can use to test the performance of our website is GTmetrix . It stands out in that in the report, the analyzed website receives two scores for page loading speed. The first is determined based on Google guidelines, and the second on Yahoo guidelines. As a result, we receive personalized guidelines for our website and can analyze the loaded resources.
It is also worth mentioning that the test is conducted from a server in Canada, so the distance between it and our website's server will translate into longer loading times for all resources.