Testing Site Speed

Page speed is critical to site performance; fast loading sites encourage users to remain on your site and make your site more likely to rank well in searches. So, it’s a good idea to test each site to evaluate if any changes need to be made. Google has two tools for testing page speed: Test My Site and PageSpeed Insights.

Testing Your Site

TEST MY SITE

Google’s Test My Site tool allows you to measure a specific site’s performance across all devices and provides a list of suggested fixes you can implement. The test primarily reports how fast your website loads and compares it to data to provide an overall summary on how much traffic you may be losing as a result of any delay. This test can help you improve your site and the user experience, however it is likely not the test that Google uses to rank your site.

To use this tool, visit the Test My Site website and enter your URL to see your site’s score.

PAGESPEED INSIGHTS

Google’s PageSpeed Insights is a more focused set of tests and will likely be the tool Google actually uses to rank your site for search rankings. This test focuses on how above-the-fold content (i.e. the visible portion of the home page that a visitor first sees) performs and loads . PageSpeed Insights analyzes a site based on best practices and then offers a list of recommendations you can use to improve your site.

To use this tool, visit the PageSpeed Insights website and enter your URL to see your site’s score.

Evaluating Your Site

Although these tests are critical to understanding how your site is performing, they are not 100% comprehensive. So, take each recommendation into consideration and evaluate which changes are the most critical.

As all Without Code sites are automatically optimized and our Worry-Free Hosting provides multiple features, sites built on our platform are likely to rank highly on the PageSpeed test. Read more about our hosting benefits and which features can improve load speed.

Common Issues and Solutions

  • Large Pages: if your site takes over six seconds to load, the page is likely too large. Consider the following:
    • Images. Too many images are likely the culprit of a large page. Limit the number of full-size images to five on one page. If you need to add more, consider adding them further down the page below the fold.
    • Videos. Embedded videos, video backgrounds, and self-hosted videos can all increase page size. Consider removing non-essential videos.
    • Sliders and Galleries. Image sliders and galleries can add weight to a page. Use these sparingly.
  • Multiple Landing Page Redirects: try running your speed test with “https://www” in front of your URL to get a result. When searched without a subdomain, sites are redirected to the appropriate URL (leaving out “www” can increase the load time).
  • Render Blocking JavaScript: If this test shows render blocking JavaScript, ensure that you have not added custom code; adding this code can impact optimization.
  • Too Many Fonts: Using several fonts can impact the page speed, as additional code must be loaded for each one. Limit your fonts.