How to Properly Run a Website Speed Test: According to a study conducted by Google, there can be an increase of up to 31% in website bounce rates when page load times increase from one second to three seconds.
Based on my observations, page load times are among the most common technical issues encountered by web developers and administrators, particularly when it comes to mobile devices. To address page speed problems, the initial step is to comprehend the website loading process and pinpoint the most crucial metrics that contribute to faster load times.
What is Website Speed
Website speed refers to how quickly a website’s pages load and displays content in a user’s browser. It is often measured in terms of page load time, which is the time it takes for a web page to fully load in a user’s browser after a user requests it. A fast website speed is important for providing a good user experience and can also affect search engine rankings and website traffic. Slow website speeds can lead to higher bounce rates, lower engagement, and decreased revenue for businesses.
How Do Websites Load?
The internet can be a complex system. However, we can simplify the explanation of the page load process by breaking it down into two crucial components that communicate with each other.
Clients Side Vs Servers Side
Clients Side: Clients are web-enabled devices that transmit requests to a server over the internet to display a webpage. Examples of clients include computers connected to WiFi, mobile devices connected to data plans, and browsers utilized to execute this function.
Server Side: On the other hand, servers are computers that store web addresses and attempt to fulfil requests to enable clients to view a webpage. These servers are also commonly referred to as the DNS (domain name system), which houses every available address on the internet.
Having a clear understanding of the relationship between clients and servers can assist in identifying any potential disruptions or increases in latency that can impact your website’s page speed. Typing in a URL is the first step in loading a webpage, which sends a request to a DNS to fetch the unique IP address and process the request on the web application’s server.
Once the request is processed, the user’s browser sends an HTML response to begin processing the Document Object Model (DOM), and the time taken to receive this information is known as the time to first byte (TTFB) – a critical page load metric.
After processing the HTML response, the browser maps out the DOM and CSS Object Model to execute JavaScript. However, before the accurate rendering of a page can begin, the browser needs to render all CSS and JavaScript elements. If there are any external blocking scripts, the resource will need to be downloaded, leading to increased load times.
Once the page elements are fully loaded, a window load event will be triggered, and the page will load entirely above the fold. It is essential to note that pages with asynchronous loading will continue to load elements even after window load events are executed.
Page load times vary between desktop and mobile devices, depending on the mobile-friendliness of the website and the network the device uses to connect to the internet. For instance, Google’s benchmark for mobile page speeds is to load above-the-fold content within one second to enable users to interact with sites as quickly as possible.
Achieving the benchmark of loading above-the-fold content within one second on a mobile device can be challenging since network latency over a 4G network typically consumes at least 300 milliseconds of page load times, leaving only 700 milliseconds for optimizing a page. Nonetheless, reaching this benchmark is feasible, but it requires effective optimization techniques.
How Important Is Website Speed
Google prioritizes sites that load quickly and efficiently since it depends on positive customer experiences to retain its market share. Therefore, pages that load faster than others are usually given preference. This preference is also reflected in your analytics, with slower pages incurring higher bounce rates than faster ones.
Monitoring your page speed is critical for several reasons:
User Experience: Fast-loading pages are a user expectation across mobile and desktop devices. Slow page loading increases the time to first interaction and results in higher bounce rates, negatively impacting key user metrics. This may lead to decreased conversion rates and a potential impact on website revenue.
Google Algorithms: Studies indicate that Google values page speed in its rankings algorithms, with mobile page speed being particularly important. While the exact impact on rankings is unclear, Google has emphasized the significance of factors like Core Web Vitals.
Functionality and Processing: Page speed is a critical aspect of website functionality and can hinder fundamental processes, such as loading shopping carts or blog posts, resulting in elevated bounce rates.
Authority and Trust: A website that loads quickly conveys a degree of credibility and expertise, while a slow-loading website may suggest that it is inadequately constructed or even suspicious.
Optimizing your website’s page speed requires addressing any issues that negatively impact it. Since page speeds can vary across devices and locations, continuous testing is crucial.
What are the factors to consider when Running A Webpage Test
Different page speed tests and tools may provide varying results, which is why it is important to balance these results and understand which metrics to prioritize in order to obtain the most unbiased results.
Caching
I would suggest starting by testing your website with caching enabled and disabled to observe the impact. Although most tools ignore caching, some tools like WordPress offer the option to test page speeds with caching enabled.
It’s essential to configure your caching settings to ensure they do not interfere with your results or produce different results from other tools.
Location
Location is an important factor to consider when testing page speed because load times can vary depending on a user’s network and server proximity. Some people overlook this aspect of testing, but it can have a significant impact on user experience.
To improve page speed, one strategy is to host the website on a server that is geographically closer to the target audience. Another option is to use a content delivery network (CDN), which consists of a network of distributed servers that can reduce the distance between the user and the website’s server. These solutions can lead to substantial improvements in website load times.
Running Multiple Tests
To obtain more accurate results of what users are experiencing, I recommend conducting multiple tests on various tools, as different page speed tests may produce varying outcomes based on anomalies with your website or network.
Metrics
Lastly, it’s crucial to have an understanding of the key metrics that significantly impact page load speeds. Here are a few that I’ve highlighted:
Page Load Time: The metric measures the overall time taken to fully load a webpage. You can access a report of your URLs’ page load time across various browsers through Google Analytics.
Time To First Byte (TTFB): This metric measures the time it takes for the browser to receive the first byte of information from the server in response to its request for a webpage. A poor Time To First Byte (TTFB) score could indicate that your website has many large files that take longer to load, or that your server needs to be upgraded or moved to a new location.
Numbers of HTTP Requests: Each file loaded on a page generates a new request, which can have a negative impact on page speed.
Core Web Vitals
Core Web Vitals is a set of specific website performance metrics that Google has identified as being essential to the overall user experience. The three Core Web Vitals are:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): measures the loading performance of the largest image or text block visible within the viewport.
- First Input Delay (FID): measures the time from when a user first interacts with a page to when the browser is actually able to respond to that interaction.
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): measures the visual stability of a page by looking at how much elements on the page move around during the loading process.
These metrics are meant to help website owners and developers focus on improving the most critical aspects of user experience, and Google has indicated that they will be increasingly important for search engine rankings factor.
Field and Lab Data
In measuring page speeds, it’s crucial to distinguish between field and lab data. Field data considers the historical load time of a page, while lab data provides data from a simulated test. Google Analytics offers field data and a record of how long it typically takes to load pages on your website. Meanwhile, lab data, like Google’s Lighthouse, gives an estimated measurement of page load speeds under certain conditions.
Lab data is useful for identifying specific issues, while field data is an excellent way to track your website’s progress and usability over time. Considering these tips, let’s explore some of the best tools I recommend for testing website speeds on every site.
Best Tools To Test Website Speed
There are many tools available to test website speed. Below are some of the best tools that can help you identify issues and optimize your website speed:
- Google PageSpeed Insights: This tool analyzes your website speed on both mobile and desktop devices, and provides recommendations to improve your website’s performance. It also gives you a score between 0 and 100, with higher scores indicating better page speed.
- GTmetrix: GTmetrix provides a detailed analysis of your website’s speed and performance, and identifies areas for improvement. It also provides a Waterfall Chart that shows how long each element takes to load.
- Pingdom: This tool allows you to test your website speed from multiple locations and provides a breakdown of the time taken for each element to load. It also provides recommendations to improve your website’s performance.
- WebPageTest: WebPageTest allows you to test your website speed from different browsers and devices, and provides a detailed analysis of your website’s performance. It also provides a Waterfall Chart that shows how long each element takes to load.
- Lighthouse: Lighthouse is an open-source tool developed by Google that provides a comprehensive analysis of your website’s performance, including page speed, accessibility, and SEO. It provides lab data based on a simulated test and identifies areas for improvement.
By using these tools, you can identify issues that are impacting your website speed and take steps to optimize your website’s performance.
Google Search Console
For a detailed examination of individual page speeds, I highly suggest accessing the Speed Report within Google Search Console. You can use Google Search Console to track the progress and changes of your site’s page speed. It’s worth noting that many of the same metrics can also be found in Google Analytics.
New Relic
New Relic is a tool that provides advanced features to monitor website speed, debug code issues, and optimize plugin performance for faster page loading. While it requires a subscription, it offers valuable features such as real-time alerts when page speed drops after a site update.
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How To Improve Website Speed
Although tools can identify specific issues with your website, there are general best practices you can adopt to enhance your website’s page speeds.
Caching
Implementing caching is an effective way to quickly improve website speeds for returning visitors. By enabling web or browser caching, websites can store data on a client-side device, reducing the number of resources required to load the site during the next visit. Plugins such as WP Rocket and WP Super Cache provide caching functionality and can greatly enhance the user experience.
Enable Compression
Enabling compression via an automated plugin can help reduce the drag on any website caused by large file and image sizes. Optimole and WP Rocket, which include the Imagify plugin, are among the many plugins available for WordPress.
Lazy Loading
Delaying file loads until the user accesses them is a feature offered by caching tools such as WP Rocket or LazyLoad. With lazy loading, images or files below the fold of a webpage are not loaded until a user scrolls down the page.
Optimize Your Server Location/CDN
A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is a system of distributed servers that work together to deliver web content, such as images, videos, and other static files, to users based on their geographic location. Instead of serving content from a single server, a CDN stores copies of website content on multiple servers in various locations worldwide. When a user requests a webpage, the CDN identifies the closest server to the user and delivers the content from that server. This helps reduce latency and improves website performance by ensuring that users can access content quickly and easily, regardless of their location.
Having your webpage hosted on a server located geographically closer to your users can help decrease latency and load times. However, if you cater to a global audience, it’s advisable to invest in a content delivery network (CDN) that can significantly reduce latency times and load speeds for people worldwide.
Minify Resources
Optimizing CSS and JavaScript files is crucial to improve webpage loading speed. Minifying these files, which involves removing unnecessary characters, spaces, and comments, can help reduce file size and decrease the time required to download them. Additionally, removing or consolidating duplicate code can further reduce the number of requests the client and server need to handle to load a webpage properly. There are several tools available, like Minify and Autoptimize, that can automatically optimize these files for you.
Reduce Plugins And Unnecessary Code
In conclusion, removing unnecessary resources like outdated backend plugins can optimize your website’s performance and reduce the load on devices trying to access it.
It is essential to regularly audit and remove plugins that are no longer in use to ensure that your website runs efficiently. This is a common problem among WordPress site owners who often forget to remove legacy plugins that can severely impact their website’s functionality and speed.
Wrap Up
With an understanding of how to test website speed and which metrics to focus on, you can now take steps to improve your site’s speed and track how it affects your SEO rankings. Although website speed is just one of many factors that impact SEO, the advantages of having a fast-loading website outweigh the costs associated with optimizing it. If you want to grow your business by getting more leads and generating sales, you must hire an Enterprise SEO specialist for quick results.
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