Web performance focuses on site speed — that is, the time it takes for a page to load its contents. Users expect websites to load completely in 1-2 seconds. Any longer, and they’re likely to bounce right out.
Viewed holistically, website performance also involves smoothness and interactivity. Once a visitor lands on your page, they need each element to respond to their requests instantly. Scrolling through your content has to be painless, pleasant, and engaging.
Of course, there are many ways to achieve this, like using CSS for animations instead of JavaScript, enabling lazy loading, and minimizing file sizes.
In this blog, we breeze through top tools from Google that will help you climb up its ranking system. Aside from site speed, we’re also going to look at tools that tackle SEO, analytics, and other factors that impact website performance.
1. PageSpeed Insights
PageSpeed Insights (PSI) audits site speed on desktop and mobile devices. It uses Lighthouse to generate a performance score and suggestions on how to enhance website performance.
PSI collects data on your pages and scores their Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). These metrics measure load speed, responsiveness, and visual stability, respectively.
To get a good mark on FCP, the main content must load within 0 to 2500 milliseconds. On the other hand, the threshold for FID is between 0 to 100 milliseconds. In terms of CLS, visual elements should remain constant, and your pages should score less than 0.1.
You can get this information and more by simply pasting the URL to your web page on PSI and clicking analyze.
2. PageSpeed Modules
PageSpeed Modules is a close relative of PageSpeed Insights that gives you feedback and automates some aspects of website optimization. PageSpeed Modules are open-source and easily incorporated into your pages without changing your current workflow.
It features four module filters that optimize stylesheets, JavaScript files, images, HTML, and tracking activity. In general, the tool works by reducing file sizes and the number of requests to a web server.
With PageSpeed Modules, some website owners report decreasing the data size by up to 90% and load time by up to 80%. The tool is easily installed and is updated frequently by a community of developers around the world.
3. Google Search Console
Google Search Console is one of the best all-in-one tools for website optimization. It generates reports concerning site speed, web traffic, security, indexing status, and more.
In one dashboard, you can monitor, test, and track your AMP pages for usability problems. Google Search Console gives you information on errors like incompatible plugins, viewport issues, small font sizes, and touch elements placed too close together.
Google Search Console is especially useful for SEO specialists and marketers because it shows how your website fares on Google’s ranking algorithm. Specifically, how often your site is pulled up, what queries lead to your content, and the number of users who actually visit your website.
The tool notifies you of pressing problems like broken links and malware so you can address them immediately. And the best part is, all its services are available for free.
4. Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a set of free tools needed to analyze market data and consumer behavior. Although it’s not directly related to loading time and responsiveness, Google Analytics provides unique insights on user demographics and preferences.
The tool automatically grabs various user information such as age, gender, country, interests, and language. It even tells you the time at which the user visited your app or website. Aside from these, you can create custom dimensions or metrics for the tool to collect.
Other reports provided by Google Analytics include conversion rate, traffic sources, web page views, time on page, and more. The insights you gain on your consumers, competitors, and content help you tailor future enhancements for better results.
5. Google Optimize
Google Optimize is an online split-testing tool designed to identify site experiences that effectively engage and delight users. It is natively integrated with Google Analytics so you can easily zero-in on areas that need improvement.
Its bread and butter is A/B testing, which allows you to run multiple versions of one web page and identify which performs best.
Google Optimize also offers multivariate testing, split URL testing, and server-side experiments among others. What’s more, it is complete with a visual editor, diagnostics, and customer segmentation.
6. Test My Site
Test My Site is a tool made specifically to evaluate mobile site performance. It checks mobile site speed, monitors mobile trends, and gives your standing against that of your competitors. The tool was developed in 2017 and has since been revamped to present data more concisely.
Compared to its earlier version, Test My Site is now capable of showing you your bounce rate due to slow load times. This data is used in its analysis of how your mobile site speed affects revenue.
Test My Site offers custom solutions for detected problems. When you click on the tab about optimization potential, you’ll see a brief overview of what to do with your results. Recommendations are color-coded to signify which fixes you should prioritize.
For the step-by-step process, Test My Site provides links to PageSpeed Insights, where you’ll be taught how to implement enhancements properly.
7. Google Trends
If there’s anything we’ve learned from last year, it’s that people’s priorities can change in an instant. Google Trends helps you keep up with buzzing topics to guide content ideation and marketing campaigns.
The first information the tool provides is a list of trending queries and top relevant search terms. If you’re looking for something specific, you can enter keywords on Google Trends and see how they perform across different periods, types of search, and locations.
These insights are good foundations for content marketing, ads, and seasonal campaigns. In turn, you gain more traffic and have a better chance at Google putting you on top of its search results page.
Team Up with Professional Web Developers
Although there are enhancements you can make on your own, you can never go wrong with a professional team of web developers and designers.
Let us bring in our expertise to improve your website’s performance tenfold — and with it, your conversion rate. Contact DevWerkz today.