Improving Google PageSpeed Insights: 7 Critical Factors to Consider
Alright, so your website loads slower than a snail crossing a salt flat — that’s a problem. People don’t have the time or patience for that kind of nonsense. They click the back button faster than you can say “affiliate marketing.” Google knows this — and Google hates slow websites.
That’s where Google PageSpeed Insights comes in, a free tool to help you figure out why your site is dragging and what to do about it. It’s like a doctor for your website, but without the bad breath and small talk.
Key Takeaways:
- PageSpeed Insights: Use this tool to measure website performance and identify speed issues.
- Core Web Vitals: Focus on Largest Contentful Paint, First Input Delay, and Cumulative Layout Shift for better user experience.
- Optimize Load Speeds: Improve loading times by optimizing images, leveraging browser caching, and minifying CSS files.
- Mobile Performance: Ensure your site performs well on mobile versions to cater to a majority of users.
- Regular Testing: Conduct performance audits regularly to track improvements and address any slow-loading pages.
- Actionable Recommendations: Implement insights from PageSpeed Insights to enhance SEO and reduce bounce rates.
What’s the Deal with Google PageSpeed Insights?
Think of Google PageSpeed Insights as a report card — for your website. You type in your website address. The tool does its thing. Then it spits out a performance score — from zero to one hundred — on how fast your site is. It’s pretty straightforward — the higher the score, the better. But the score isn’t all there is to it.
It gives you advice, too. Like a know-it-all friend, it points out all the things you’re doing wrong. This includes problems like loading time, too many pictures, and stuff that keeps your site from loading fast. The tool tests your website performance on both desktop devices and mobile devices, since people use phones a lot now to look at things. It gives you different scores for each.
A good score doesn’t mean you’ve won the lottery, but it will bring a smile to your face. Getting your performance score up is a good way to look at how to improve your website speed.
Here’s the Quick Dirt
- Direct answer: It tells you how fast your website loads.
- BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front): Slow websites make people leave, which is bad for business. Google PageSpeed Insights shows you how to fix it.
- People Also Ask: This tool addresses common questions about site speed and website speed test.
- Comparison/Buyer intent: It focuses on helping your site rank better in search engine rankings.
Why Should You Care About PageSpeed Insights? (Besides Google Being a Jerk)
Look, nobody likes waiting. Not for a bus, not for a pizza, and definitely not for a website. Slow websites make people bounce — and that means less money for you. Conversion rate is another problem.
Google wants happy users. Happy users get better user experience. Google wants those happy users to stick around, so the search engine rewards fast websites with better positions in the search results. That’s good for you — more eyeballs on your site. And more eyeballs mean more clicks.
Google PageSpeed Insights also helps you get the right kind of attention from search engines, which is part of the Search Engine Optimization puzzle. It’s a way of getting ahead, not just fixing problems. It gives you a competitive edge. By improving your site speed, you will have a leg up on the competition. It is crucial to know how to improve website SEO!
What Does Google PageSpeed Insights Actually Check?
This tool isn’t just some magic box. It uses a bunch of different things to look at your site. Like a detective, it sees all sorts of problems — or potential problems. This includes things like Google tools and the Google analysis.
Core Web Vitals: The Big Three
These are the most important things Google looks at:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): This is how long it takes for the biggest thing on your page to load. This could be a picture, a video, or a block of text. You want this to be fast.
- First Input Delay (FID): This is how long it takes for your site to react when someone clicks on it or taps it. You want this short so people don’t get frustrated.
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): Ever had a page jump around while it’s loading? That’s CLS. This tells Google how much your website shifts unexpectedly while loading. No one likes it when the website moves around, so you want this to be low.
More Things That Matter
Google PageSpeed Insights also checks things that slow down your site, like:
- Loading speed
- Load times
- Performance issues
- Performance bottlenecks
- File size
- Image sizes
- Offscreen images
- Render-blocking resources
- Third-party scripts
- Server response times
- Browser Caching
- Page load time
- Website loading time
- Digital performance
Basically, everything that can slow things down is something this tool will check! It uses things like Google Analytics to get real-world data. It also gives you detailed insights and actionable recommendations.
How to Use Google PageSpeed Insights — Don’t Be Scared
It’s easy, even if you’re not a tech wizard.
- Go to the Google PageSpeed Insights website. It’s just a search away.
- Type in your website address. The whole thing, like https://affiliatemarketingforsuccess.com/.
- Click “Analyze.”
- Wait a bit. The tool is doing its thing, so don’t freak out.
- Look at your score(s). See how fast things are.
- Read the recommendations. This is where you find out what’s wrong.
What to Do With the Results
Okay, so you got a bad score. Don’t panic. Google PageSpeed Insights gives you advice on how to fix things. The advice is mostly about how to make things faster. This is a great opportunity for page speed optimization.
- Fix Render-Blocking Resources: These are things that stop your site from loading.
- Optimize Images: Make sure your pictures aren’t huge, including your image files and image sizes.
- Leverage Browser Caching: This tells the browser to save some of your website so it doesn’t have to download it every time.
- Minify CSS and JavaScript: Make these files smaller so your site loads faster.
- Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN): This puts your site closer to people, so it loads faster for them.
- Remove Unnecessary Characters: Get rid of any unnecessary characters in your code.
- Lazy Load Images: Load images only when people need to see them.
It’s like giving your website a diet and exercise plan. Be patient. If you’re looking to start a blog, remember that taking care of your SEO is going to make a huge difference, especially when you’re focused on creating evergreen content. Google PageSpeed Insights provides website performance tips to improve it. Also, consider your digital marketing strategies. Be sure to use SEO tips!
Fixing Problems: What to Do (and Who to Ask)
Okay, so you have problems. Now what?
- Talk to Your Web Developer: If you don’t know what any of this means, find someone who does. This is their job.
- Use Plugins: If you use WordPress, there are plugins that can help with some of these problems.
- Learn Stuff: Take a class, read a book, or watch some videos. It helps you learn SEO by yourself.
- Consider Paid Tools: Some paid tools can help you with website optimization tools.
These issues are going to affect how the content you write ranks on Google. If you’re trying to learn more about how to deal with performance issues, you may want to look at what a digital-first approach means for the health of your content. It will impact how people experience your content, which is why a holistic approach to content is useful.
Tips and Tricks (Because You Like Them)
- Test Regularly: Don’t just test your site once. Do it often, especially after you make changes.
- Check on Mobile: Make sure your site loads fast on phones. A lot of people use them. Mobile performance is crucial.
- Focus on Core Web Vitals: These are the most important things.
- Don’t Overdo the Fancy Stuff: Too many animations or big images can slow things down.
- Test from Different Locations: See how your site loads for people in different places.
- Optimize for Above-Fold Content: Make sure the stuff people see first loads fast.
When you are writing on your blog, you’re going to want to think about how Search Engine Optimization works, and the benefits of implementing an effective SEO strategy will be something you will thank yourself for in the long run. The loading of your website is going to be affected by many of these factors, but the main idea is to make sure to improve site speed.
If you’re going to start a blog, you should also think about your content management so that you can manage all your content better. You want to make sure that your site is fast loading!
You’re also going to need to choose a web host.
Great strategies to start implementing.
- Optimize images: Use the right image file formats and consider image compression.
- Minimize code: Remove unnecessary characters from your code.
- Prioritize content: Load the most important content first.
- Use Browser Caching: Improve website speed.
- Test your website: Always test your website and check your Google PSI score.
If you don’t want your website to be a turtle, you’re going to need to know about things like mobile page speed, load times, mobile performance, CSS files, third-party scripts and how to use optimization strategy to get your website running smoothly. Reducing your bounce rate is going to make a huge difference. Make sure to improve your load times!
So, Is Google PageSpeed Insights Worth It?
Yes. Absolutely. A fast website is good for everyone. It’s good for your users, good for your rankings, and good for your bank account.
It’s not easy. You have to take the time to do it right. However, the pay-off makes the effort worthwhile.
Google PageSpeed Insights is a powerful tool that can help you make your website faster and better. So go use it.
If you’re new to this, don’t worry — you’re not alone. Many people struggle with the technical aspects of running a website. But don’t give up. With a little effort, you can make your website load fast and get more traffic.
If you need to, reach out to other people. It’s a small price to pay to make sure that your website is healthy!
If you are not getting enough traffic, you might want to consider link building strategies.
References:
[1] https://nitropack.io/blog/post/google-pagespeed-insights-beginner-guide
[2] https://www.semrush.com/blog/google-pagespeed-insights/
[3] https://loadninja.com/articles/google-pagespeed-insights/
[4] https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/25c3da7f45a69c78c1de6441100aecaf985da3b2
[5] https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/4f2f5cdcff79cb7d47191a4d959b71463090d41b
[6] https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/36edaba4a48ba2064e6361f5dee9ce2639d1b19f
[7] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10242473/
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[14] https://pagespeed.web.dev
[15] https://www.syntacticsinc.com/news-articles-cat/new-google-pagespeed-insights-features/
[16] https://developers.google.com/speed/docs/insights/v5/get-started
[17] https://www.ematicsolutions.com/what-google-pagespeed-insights/
[18] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PU10N-uTFmg
[19] https://developers.google.com/speed/docs/insights/v4/about
[20] https://fluentsupport.com/google-pagespeed-insights/
[21] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5zSF1JQ1gs
[22] https://support.wix.com/en/article/site-performance-understanding-pagespeed-insights
[23] https://developer.chrome.com/docs/crux/guides/pagespeed-insights
[24] https://magefan.com/blog/google-pagespeed-insights-guide
[25] https://blog.hubspot.com/website/google-pagespeed-insights
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[27] https://pinkdogdigital.com/guide-google-pagespeed-insights-2024/
I’m Alexios Papaioannou, an experienced affiliate marketer and content creator. With a decade of expertise, I excel in crafting engaging blog posts to boost your brand. My love for running fuels my creativity. Let’s create exceptional content together!
