How fast do your web page load? Are they fast enough for Google according to google pagespeed insights? Do they pass Google’s page speed insights analysis?
Since Google owns the lion’s share of search queries, it’s important that your web page’s meet and exceed Google’s standards, lab data for speed, also known as Core Web Vitals.
Google first made page speed a ranking factors for search results back in 2010. That was a time when everyone used a desktop computer or laptop to access the internet. In July 2018, Google made pages speed a rank factor for mobile search results.
Now that Google has launched their mobile-first index, optimizing your page’s speed isn’t an option – it’s mandatory if you want your web page’s to rank.
Pages speed measures how fast your web page’s content loads on a given page. Each element on a page takes a certain amount of time to load, from JavaScript to images, text, and video. Pages speed is determined by the amount of time it takes for all content to fully display on a web page’s (google pagespeed insights).
Pages speed matters for two reasons: ranking and visitor retention.
Ideally, you want your web page performance to load as fast as possible. More than 50% of all visitors bounce when a mobile web page’s takes more than three seconds to load. The result can be catastrophic for businesses. Visitors who experience slow web page’s are unlikely to return, destroying what could have been a sale.
Since pages speed is now an official ranking’s factor for all Google searches, it matters for every website. However, you can only optimize your web page’s to be so fast. There are limitations, and you don’t want to spend all of your time obsessing over a millisecond. Once you optimize your page’s speed to a certain level, you’re just splitting hairs.
In 2016, Gary Illyes from Google Tweeted that webmasters don’t need to worry too much about page speeds, even though it’s a rank factor. However, that was two years before pages speed became an official ranking factor for Google’s mobile-first index, which is now the main search index.
Today, we know that pages speed matters, and is even more important in light of Google’s mobile-first index. According to Google’s industry benchmarks, speed equals revenue.
If you’ve ever wondered why mobile conversions are lower than desktop conversions, it’s pretty clear the common denominator is speed.
The average mobile site takes 27.3 seconds to load, but the average visitor bounces when a site takes longer than three seconds to load. If visitors bounce after three seconds, that means most mobile site don’t stand a chance at maximizing conversions.
Prior to Google’s mobile-first index, many webmasters abandoned optimizing pages speed when they couldn’t identify a direct correlation between pages speed and ranking. Although, that doesn’t mean a correlation doesn’t exist. We know it’s a ranking factor, but it might not be as direct and obvious as other factors like time to first byte (TTFB).
TTFB has a measurably direct correlation with ranking and webmasters have been focusing on improving this speed metric. Google wants all of its indexed pages to have a TTFB of 200 milliseconds or less. Still, pages speed is equally important, even if it’s mostly for your visitors.
Do you want a perfect score from Google Pagespeed insights tool? Keep reading, because we’ll show you how to get it.
Skip the third-party tools other than google pagespeed insights and head straight over to Google’s PageSpeed Insights free tool. Type in your web page’s URLs one at a time to have each pages analyzed.
The google pagespeed insights results will tell you if your pages is in the red (slow), in the middle, or green (fast) with the help of advanced data visualization. Underneath your overall score, you’ll get a bunch of web design metrics that show you the speed of various elements. Then, you’ll see a list of opportunities that can help you increase your pages speed, get a perfect pagespeed insights score.
For example, the google pagespeed insights system might tell you to:
Each google pagespeed insights recommendations will have a drop-down menu that reveals associated report details. For instance, under “keep request counts low,” you’ll get a list of how many requests your pages makes for each type of resource along with the transfer size of those requests. Under this item, the system will recommend adding a budget.json file to better manage your resources.
Make sure to test your pages load time specifically for mobile users on google pagespeed insights. If you have one site for desktop and mobile users, you only need to run one test per web page. If you have a separate site/multiple page/handle user requests for mobile users, you’ll need to test all of your mobile web page as separate pages to improve site performance.
Once you identify where your pages speed is struggling with google pagespeed insights, you’ll be ready for the next step.
It’s good to know when javascript and css scripts is slowing down your site, but then you need to investigate each script to identify the cause. If large images are slowing down your page speed, you’ll need to identify which images are at fault.
Once you know what the problems are and which specific elements are causing those problems, you’re ready to take specific actions to improve your pages speed.
Before you make changes, set your goal. How long do you want your pages load time to be for each of your web page?
The optimal pages speed load time is two seconds or less. Research conducted by Portent shows conversions drastically increase when pages load speed reaches two seconds or less. For instance, from three to nine seconds, conversion rates remained at or below 2.93%.
However, at two seconds, conversion rates began to jump. Conversion rates were 4.64% at two seconds, 6.32% at one second, and 8.11% at zero seconds.
According to Google’s benchmark aggregated data, the ideal web pages should be 500KB or less. That’s about a two second load time.
Once you have a specific goal – and hopefully that goal is two seconds or less – it’s time to make a list of what needs to change. Here are some ideas:
If you’re running WordPress/wordpress plugin for an ecommerce website, consider migrating to Shopify for a better, faster experience & real world data.
If you have a Mac, use ImageOptim to optimize your images. It’s so easy to use, all you do is create your settings and drag and drop images into the program. In most cases, you can reduce the size of your images by 50%.
The coolest part about AMP is that once a visitor is done reading your page, if they keep scrolling, they’ll continue to the next AMP-powered search result.
Is your site speed slow? Are you not getting the green light from Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool? If you need to speed up your website, but you’re not sure how, we can help.
Want to learn more about what it takes to get a speedy, high-ranking website? Contact us today and we’ll be happy to share our insight and create a plan to get your site on track for success.
The Dev.co development team can speed up your existing website or create a new, speedy design from scratch. If you’re not ranking in the search engines and your site is slow, you’ll benefit from increasing all of your speed-related metrics.
When you partner with us, we’ll get your site up to speed so you can rank better, keep your visitors engaged, and increase your revenue. Contact us today to learn more!
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