One of Google’s basic factors for determining the ranking of web pages is page load. For this reason, if you want Google to show your page in its top results, you should pay special attention to the loading speed of your site. One of the tools provided by Google to analyze the site is the Google page speed tool. In the following, we introduce and teach this tool in full.
What is Google page speed?
It is a popular tool for analyzing web pages. which Google has provided us for free and plays an important role in SEO of the site.
Google page speed insights examines your site. And according to its function, it will give you a score between 0 and 100, which Google’s target score is between 90 and 100.
Getting started with Google page speed
First, enter the Google page speed insights site.
Now copy your desired URL in the field below and then click on Analyze
Here we have two options, Desktop and Mobile, in each of which we can measure the performance of the site in both mobile and desktop versions.
After a few seconds, when the analysis of the desired URL is finished, scroll down a little to see a page like this:
As you can see, our website got a good score of 93 in terms of efficiency. Performance score is actually the overall score of the site.
Introducing the METRICS section
FCP or First Contentful Paint:
FCP is the time it takes for the first page content to load (this option is also available in GtMetrix). Usually the header section or the first heading of the page is the first content section that will be loaded. To improve FCP, the size of images should be reduced and compressed as much as possible.
Speed Index:
SI or Speed index is the time it takes for the entire content of the site to load. The maximum time in optimal mode for speed index is 4.3 seconds.
Largest Contentful Paint:
This section measures the time it takes to load the largest page element (image or font or…). The best possible time for LCP is a maximum of 2.5 seconds.
Time to Interactive:
Another important factor of Google Insights is the length of time that your site allows interaction with the user. The suggested time for this option is 3.8 seconds.
Total Blocking Time:
This section actually measures the time between the loading of the first content section of the page until the user can interact with it such as clicking, typing, etc.
Cumulative Layout Shift:
The time it takes for the various page elements to move until the page is fully loaded. which is one of the main factors in 2021.
Opportunity section:
In this section, we can help optimize our site by following the suggestions mentioned by Google Insights.
DIAGNOSTICS: Identify the best ways to improve performance in this section. But fixing these doesn’t always reduce load times.
Passed Audits: Approved items are displayed in this section.
A few ways to improve your site’s ranking in Google Page Speed Insights:
- Use of CDN or content distribution network
- Reduce the size of images
Using browser recommended formats for images (svg, webp) - Loading images with a delay (using the lazy loading method)
- Reducing the size of codes
- Improve server time response – you can ease your mind about this by choosing a suitable hosting.
- Save files in the user’s browser cache
Conclusion :
One of the factors that Google emphasizes on to improve the rank of a site is its loading time. With the tool that was introduced, it is possible to help the progress of this factor to a great extent. Also, the low loading speed of the site makes users and customers satisfied.