How To Improve PageSpeed Score Of Your Website
Google uses PageSpeed score to address website performance. These metrics report a numerical representation of website performance, with higher ratings indicating faster web performance. This article will provide tips and recommendations on how to improve PageSpeed score and consequently your rankings in Google search engine results pages.
Why Google scores points on page speed
Google has been vocal about its preference for faster loading websites. In 2010, they even announced that page speed would be a factor in search ranking. And in 2018, they doubled down on that commitment by announcing that ‘Speed Update’ would roll out in July, impacting the speed of mobile searches. Google is clearly trying to send a message to webmasters and developers – make your site fast or suffer the consequences in terms of search ranking.
But why is Google so focused on speed? After all, there are other important factors that go into determining search ranking, such as the quality of content and link popularity.
The answer is simple – because faster sites provide a better user experience. And Google is all about providing the best possible user experience.
Think about it from your own perspective. When you’re searching for something online, you want to find the answer as quickly as possible, right? If you click on a result and it takes forever to load, you’re likely to click back and try another result. The same is true for mobile users. With the majority of searches now being conducted on mobile devices, Google wants to make sure that mobile users have a good experience.
How to improve page speed & web page performance
Are you looking to improve your web page performance score? Google PageSpeed Insights is a great tool that can help you determine where your page needs improvement. In this blog, we’ll show you some easy ways to make your site faster and make Google happy.
1. Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN).
A CDN is a network of servers that deliver content to users based on their geographic location. This means that your content is delivered from a server that is close to the user, which can improve page loading speed.
2. Optimize images.
Make sure that your images are compressed and properly sized for the web. Large images can slow down your page, so it’s important to optimize them before adding them to your site.
3. Minimize HTTP requests.
Each time a user visits a web page, their browser sends an HTTP request to the server. The more requests made, the longer it takes for the page to load. You can minimize HTTP requests by using CSS sprites and combining files into a single request.
4. Use caching mechanisms.
Caching allows frequently accessed data to be stored in memory so that it can be quickly retrieved when needed.
The DO’s of website speed test
Your website’s page speed score is important for two reasons: first, because it affects your website’s search engine ranking, and second, because it affects your website’s conversion rate.
There are a number of factors that contribute to your website’s page speed score, including the size of your images, the length of your pages, and the code used to build your website.
Here are some dos to keep in mind when trying to improve your website’s page speed score:
DO:
– Use a content delivery network (CDN): A CDN can help deliver your content faster by caching it across a network of servers around the world.
– Optimize your images: Make sure your images are as small as possible without sacrificing quality. You can do this by using an image compression tool like ImageOptim or TinyPNG.
– Use a caching plugin: A caching plugin will create a static version of your pages and serve them to visitors, which can drastically reduce page load times.
– Minimize HTTP requests: Every time a visitor loads a page on your website, their browser has to make multiple HTTP requests for different elements on the page. You can reduce the number of HTTP requests by combining elements like JavaScript and CSS files. Many web hosting platforms offer this kind of optimization as a feature, so check with your web host. – Reduce DNS resolution times: While DNS is essential for resolving domain names to IP addresses, every time you access a new page on a website, it could take up to 500 milliseconds just to resolve the address. This can add up if you visit multiple pages on the same website each day. Most web hosts have their own caching servers that you can access from the Control Panel. These servers store frequently accessed content and make it available so that visitors don’t need to wait for these resources to load very often. A word about speed: You shouldn’t look at loading times in isolation . 250 ms might seem faster than 500 ms, but if there’s other traffic on the network or a spike in demand slows all connections it may take longer. Ideally when analysing your connection speed, it’s best to take a broader overview of other factors as well.
Steps to optimize a WordPress website for speed
1. Use a good quality theme
The first step is to use a good quality WordPress theme. This will help ensure that your website loads quickly and efficiently. There are many great themes available, so be sure to do your research and choose one that will work well for your website.
2. Optimize your images
Make sure that all of the images on your website are optimized for speed. This means reducing their file size without compromising quality. There are many great plugins available that can help you with this, so be sure to check them out.
3. Use a caching plugin
Caching plugins are great for improving website speed. They work by creating static files of your website which are then served to users, rather than loading the entire website each time someone visits it. This can really help improve your website speed score.
4. Minimize HTTP requests
Each time a user visits your website, their browser has to send an HTTP request to the server in order to load the page. By minimizing these requests, you can speed up your website significantly. There are many ways to do this, so be sure to research the best methods for your particular website.
5. Use a CDN (Content Delivery Network)A Content Delivery Network, or CDN for short, is a service that helps you host your website on multiple servers in multiple locations. This makes your website much more responsive since today’s internet speeds allow content to load faster if it isn’t being served from one location only.6. Use a webpage caching pluginThis type of plugin works like the browser caching plugins listed above. It will create static versions of your pages and host them through the CDN so that visitors use the webpages faster and render properly even when your webhost or server slows down or goes down for some reason.7. Make sure images are compressed and optimized. There are two ways to improve this; in your CMS or with a separate image compression software. There are free programs like Smushit, and paid tools like Kraken. Image optimization should be a part of your CMS’s regular routine, but using an external program may really boost the performance depending on the size and sharpness of your images.
Tips to reduce the size of your images and other content
The first step to making your website pages load faster is to reduce the size of your images. Large images can take up a lot of bandwidth and processing power, which will slow down your site. There are a few ways to reduce the size of your images:
1. Use an image compression tool: There are many free online tools that can help you compress your images. Just search for “image compression tool” and you’ll find a ton of options.
2. Resize your images: If an image doesn’t need to be full-width, make it smaller. You can usually do this in your editing software before you export the image.
3. Reduce the number of images: If an image isn’t absolutely necessary, don’t use it. Every extra image increases the size of your page and slows down your site.
In addition to reducing the size of your images, there are a few other things you can do to reduce the amount of data your pages need to load:
1. Minimize HTTP requests: Every time a browser has to request a file from your server (like an image, CSS file, or JavaScript file) Keep requests down to a minimum by checking performance with tools like Pingdom or Google PageSpeed.You can also avoid unnecessary HTTP requests by including all of your stylesheets first, then JavaScript files, and then images at the very end of your document. Since every file not in a CSS @import statement is essentially loaded as an additional HTTP request, it’s best to include them yourself directly in the HEAD
2. Keep it simple: Compress data only so much as necessary. Excessively compressing data that is still readable doesn’t make sense. Sass has a limit of 10 KB for the size of its compressed content !!! This is helpful but again, it may prevent the file from being able to be opened by the user’s browser or decompressed correctly. ‘ Keeping your files under 10 KB is great if you aren’t compressing/minifying JavaScript or HTML as well. That said, you can try a tool like yuicompressor to limit the size of your CSS and JS files even more. Some folks like to concatenate their CSS, JS, and HTML by hand or with a python script in an effort to reduce the number of HTTP requests; it’s a kind of complex cocktail party problem.
Techniques to compress your code and reduce its size
There are a number of ways you can compress your code in order to reduce its size. This will in turn help improve your website’s page speed score. Some of the techniques you can use include:
1. Minify your HTML, CSS and JavaScript code. This involves removing things like whitespace, comments and unnecessary code. There are many tools available online that can help you with this.
2. Use a CSS or JavaScript minifier. This is a tool that will compress your code for you.
3. Use Gzip to compress your files. This is a software program that can be used to compress files on your server.
4. Use an image optimization tool. This will help reduce the file size of any images you have on your website.
5. Serve scaled images. This means serving images that are the correct size for the device or browser they are being viewed on. So, if someone is viewing your website on a mobile phone, don’t serve them an image that is meant for a desktop computer screen.
By using these techniques, you can help reduce the file size of your code and improve your website’s page speed score. Google will be happy with you and so
Conclusion
Assuming you’ve followed the tips above, your website should now have a much higher page speed score. This will please both your visitors and Google, who will rank your site higher in search results. Keep up the good work and your site will continue to perform well!
