When it comes to page speed, there are many different factors that come into play. In this article, we will discuss some of the most important ones and how you can improve your page speed. We will also provide other tools and optimize resources that you can use to get started.
What Is Google PageSpeed Insights?
Google PageSpeed Insights tool is one way to measure your page speed. This tool will give you a score from 0-100, with 100 being the fastest. This analyzes how well a page performs on desktop and mobile devices and offers recommendations for how to make the page better.
Why Page Speed Matter?
PageSpeed is a metric that Google uses to determine how fast can a page load. The faster your pages load, the higher you will rank in search results.
Google PageSpeed Insights tool is one way to measure your page speed. This tool will give you a score from 0-100, with 100 being the fastest.
Having a fast page speed is important for two reasons: first, it makes your website load faster for your visitors; and second, it helps you rank higher in Google search results.
What Google Measures In Your Page?
To get started, we recommend that you run your pages through Google PageSpeed Insights tool. This will give you a good idea of what needs to be improved.
Here are the factors that Google measures:
Total Blocking Time (TBT)
This is the time from when the user requests a page to when the page is fully loaded. The total time a page is prevented from reacting to user interaction such as mouse clicks, screen touches, or keyboard presses.
Optimal time: 300 milliseconds or less.
First Contentful Paint (FCP)
Refers to the first time anything appears in your browser. This is the time from when the user requests a page to when the first content is visible on the screen. This is frequently a header image or simply a background colour on the website.
Recommended load time: 1.8 seconds or less
Speed Index
The Speed Index measures how quickly the contents of a page are visible. Users are encouraged by search engines to optimize their pages so that they load faster. This involves reducing the size of images and simplifying code.
A good Speed Index performance score must be under 4.3 seconds
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
Largest Contentful Paint is a metric that assesses how long it takes a website to show the user the most stuff on the screen that is full and ready for interaction. According to Google, this performance score solely examines information above the fold or everything that appears without scrolling.
Optimal Time: 2.5 seconds
Time to Interactive (TTI)
TTI measure that analyzes a page’s load responsiveness and assists in identifying circumstances where a website appears to be interactive but isn’t. TTI determines the earliest point after First Contentful Paint (FCP) at which the page is dependably available for user interaction.
Optimal Time: 2468 milliseconds or less.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
The cumulative layout shift (or CLS) of a web page is a measure of how much it shifts unexpectedly over time. This measures the performance of how many elements on the page move around during loading. For instance, if a website visitor views a page and while reading it, banner loads and the page jumps down, this would result in an excessive CLS score.
Optimal Time: Less than 0.1.
How to use Google PageSpeed Insights?
- Go to Google PageSpeed Insights.
- Enter the URL of the page you want to test
- Click Analyze.
- You will see a performance score from 0-100, with 100 being the fastest.
- You will also see a list of factors that are affecting your page speed.
- From here, you can start making changes to improve your page speed.
How To Improve PageSpeed?
There are many ways to improve your page speed. Here are some of the most important ones:
1. Compress Your Images
One of the simplest and most effective ways of image optimization to improve your site speed is by compressing your images. Images are often the largest files on a page, so compressing them can make a big difference.
There are many ways to compress image size, but we recommend using an online tool like compressor.io. Simply upload your image and let compressor.io do its magic.
compressor.io is a great tool, but there are many other options out there. Just make sure you choose a reputable option so you don’t end up with distorted images.
And remember, you don’t need to compress every image on your site. Just the largest ones will do.
Compressing images can make a huge difference in your page speed.
Uploading compressed images will improve your site speed and help you rank higher in search results.
How to compress images using Compressor.io?
- Go to the site Compressor.io
- Upload your image to the site.
- Click on “Download” to save the compressed file to your computer.
Then replace the original image with the compressed one on your web pages.
That’s it! You’ve just successfully compressed an image without losing any quality.
2. Use Browser Caching
Browser caching is when a user’s browser stores certain files from your website on their computer. This means that the next time they visit your site, their browser doesn’t have to download those files again, which can speed up the page load.
You can add cache-control headers to your .htaccess file or set them up in your WordPress settings.
Adding cache-control headers is a great way to speed up your pages and improve your page speed score.
You can also use the Yoast SEO Plugin to alter the .htaccess file in a safer manner. SEO by Yoast is the most popular WordPress plugin. You can quickly edit the .htaccess file with this plugin. You must first install and activate Yoast if you do not already have it. Following that, you must:
- Navigate to SEO, then Tools.
- Go to the File Editor tab.
- The .htaccess file will be opened in a text editor, where you can paste the above-mentioned code.
- Save changes
After making the adjustments, you can use Google PageSpeed Insights to see if everything is working properly. You’re fine to go if your website makes proper use of browser caching. If not, you should go over the steps again to see what you missed.
3. Use Lazy Loading
Lazy loading is when a browser only loads images when they are visible on the screen. This means that if a user doesn’t scroll down to see all the images on your page, they won’t be loaded, which can save time and bandwidth.
You can lazy load images in a WordPress sites plugin like Lazy Load by WP Rocket.
You can easily enable LazyLoad in your WordPress admin dashboard by navigating to Settings > WP Rocket > Media panel. Click “Enable for images” and then “Save Changes” in the LazyLoad area at the top of the page. That’s just how it is. Your website’s images will now lazy load for visitors.
Lazy loading is a great way to perfect Pagespeed Insights score and save time and bandwidth.
4. Eliminate Render-Blocking CSS
Render-blocking CSS is code that prevents a page from loading until it has been downloaded. This can make pages load slowly, especially on mobile devices.
A browser’s “rendering” technically refers to parsing HTML code and displaying it on the screen. A web browser will first read all text HTML before generating the web page for the visitor to see and utilize. As a result, the more CSS you have on your website, the longer the browser will take to parse it, resulting in a slower loading time.
Eliminating render-blocking CSS is a great way to improve your site performance and make site loads faster.
You can eliminate render-blocking CSS by using WordPress plugins like Autoptimize or WP Rocket plugin.
WP Rocket is a premium WordPress optimization plugin with a slew of features to boost your site’s performance and loading speed. In order to do that, here are a few steps:
Step 1: Install the plugin to your WordPress site.
Step 2: After installing and activating WP Rocket, go to Settings > WP Rocket.
Step 3: Navigate to the File Optimization options. There should be a place for CSS files under here.
You can use the plugin to minify CSS files, combine CSS files, or optimize CSS delivery. Enable the options and you’re all set.
5. Eliminate Render-Blocking JavaScript
JavaScript is another code that can render-block pages. Like CSS, JavaScript prevents a page from loading until it has been downloaded. This can make pages load slowly, especially on mobile devices.
How to eliminate render-block javascript:
Using Async and Defer Attributes to Load Script
Please keep in mind that this method necessitates a thorough understanding of your site’s functionality.
It entails ensuring that non-critical
For tags, add async to the tag:
It is critical to determine whether your script is intended to use the async or defer characteristics. You risk breaking your site if you use them in scripts that aren't built to function with async or defer.
You can also eliminate render-blocking JavaScript by using WordPress plugins like Autoptimize or WP Rocket plugin.
6. Reduce Server Response Times (TTFB)
TTFB is the load time it takes from the moment you navigate to a web page to the moment it begins rendering — that is, the moment you begin seeing content on your screen.
These load times include the latency of a round trip to the server as well as the time spent waiting for the server to respond.
Because TTFB contributes to total page speed, it's a crucial measure to monitor and optimize – as well as to enhance your Core Web Vitals metrics.
Recommended Loading Time: Less than 200 ms.
You could use Disk IO, TLS overhead, minimizing autoloaded data, and other advanced strategies to optimize your TTFB on your site.
7. Reducing TTFB using WP Rocket Plugin
A database with too much superfluous data, such as post revisions, discarded and spam comments, and temporary files generated by plugins, could slow down your server's response time. You should optimize the size of your database and do regular cleanups.
WP Rocket includes a dedicated tab with all of the functionality, such as Post, Comments, and Automatic cleaning.
8. Implement AMP
AMP pages are pages that are designed to load quickly on mobile devices. Google has a strict set of guidelines that AMP pages must follow in order to be eligible to appear in the AMP carousel.
You can create AMP pages in WordPress by using the AMP for WordPress plugin.
You may want to watch how to properly set up AMP.
9. Use A Content Delivery Network
What is a CDN?
A content delivery network (CDN) is a globally dispersed network and storage service that hosts web content in many geographical zones. HTML pages, scripts, style sheets, multimedia files, and other sorts of content are all possible. This enables you to deliver content via the CDN rather than your own servers, reducing the load on your servers.
How do CDN works?
A CDN is made up of many data centres located throughout the world known as points of presence (PoPs). Each PoP has the ability to host and serve material to users. Users are routed to specific PoPs by CDNs based on a variety of factors such as distance, PoP availability, and connection speed.
A PoP serves as a conduit between your users and your origin server. When a visitor visits your website and requests a resource, such as an image or script, they are forwarded to the PoP. If the PoP has the resource cached, it will then deliver it to the user.
10. Use WordPress Themes That Load Fast
When choosing a WordPress theme, make sure to pick one that is lightweight and loads fast. A good way to test this is to run the theme demo through Google PageSpeed Insights and see what performance score it gets.
Some of our favourite fast-loading WordPress themes are:
- GeneratePress
- Astra
- OceanWP
- Neve
- Hestia
These are just a few of the many things you can do to speed up your WordPress site. By following these tips, you should see a significant improvement in your page speed scores. And as we all know, a faster website results in happier users and more conversions. If you have any questions about how to speed up your WordPress site, feel free to leave a comment below. We would be happy to help!
11. Use A Good Web Host
One of the most important factors in page speed is choosing a good web host. A good web host will have servers that are optimized for WordPress, and they will also provide you with caching and other performance enhancements.
We recommend using Bluehost, Hostinger, SiteGround, or WP Engine for your WordPress hosting needs. Both of these companies offer plans specifically for WordPress, and they are both very fast and reliable.
Conclusion
There are many factors that go into page speed, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution. However, by following the tips in this article, you should be able to see a significant improvement in your Google Pagespeed Insights scores. And as we all know, a faster website results in happier users and more conversions. So what are you waiting for? Start optimizing your pages today!
If you have any questions about how to speed up your page, feel free to leave a comment below. We would be happy to help! Thanks for reading!
