Recently we published an article on our internet marketing blog detailing various techniques for increasing the speed of a website. In our posting “Simple Modifications That Produce a Faster Website and Boost Rankings!” we provided statistics on what qualifies as a fast website and several suggestions that could potentially increase a website’s loading time. Some of these suggestions included website compression, image optimization, and properly structuring website code.
Each of these methods carries critical importance when attempting to enhance a website page speed. Website compression groups information and sends it using packets of data which mean more information is sent at one time and does not continuously flow item by item. Limiting and optimizing images avoids clutter and reduces the time the images take to display. Ensuring proper code layout also increase page speed because the page knows what elements to load first therefore keeping the visitor occupied and aware that the site is functioning properly until fully loaded.
It is important to first check the speed of your website using one of the many page testing tools found on the internet. Some of the tools are Pingdom Load Time Test and GTmtrix, however recently Google has launched its very own tool called Page Speed Online.
Page Speed Online was released on March 31, 2011 and was previously available only as a browser add-on. Google Labs newest launch now enables users to test the speed or load time of any website from any location. Google Online Page Speed is simple and convenient to use and provides an immediate review of your site and its speed. To use Google’s website speed assessment tool all a user has to do is as follows:
- Navigate to the Page Speed Online Test Screen.
- Enter the URL of the website and click “Analyze Performance”.
- Once the test initiates the result will appear in a few moments and will provide a score out of 100.
- Provided under the score are any problems that were found on your site. These problems will be broken down into priority categories of high, medium, and low.
- The problems listed in these categories are basic errors that have a negative effect on the speed of your site, for example it could say “Optimize Images”. Each of the problems listed can be accessed for a more detail description of each individual error. When a user clicks “Optimize Images” the results will identify each individual picture that needs to be optimized and provide the best solutions to do so.
- Follow the solutions provided to eliminate any problems that were found during the initial test and try re-testing your website once the solution has been implemented.
The good thing about using Google’s online page speed application as opposed to other online speed assessments is that Google’s test appears to be more accurate. Google provides the user with suggestions to fix the problems that were found during the screening process. People who utilize other online speed testing programs might receive inaccurate result because they may be only testing the time that it takes for your websites HTML to transfer. Google however not only tests the HTML transfer but also measures how long it takes for images to load and how long it takes to execute JavaScript. The Google Page speed test incorporates all of these factors and more when screening your website and provides a fuller assessment of your site speed.
In conclusion with the Google online page speed test users can instantly assess their site speed from any computer or browser and clearly identify every aspect that they should improve. The Google online page speed tool is simple to use and provides informative feedback that could assist you in drastically increasing the speed of your website.
You can try out this great tool at Google Page Speed Online!
Please share your opinion below about what you think of Google Page Speed. Will you be using it or do you already have another site speed tool that you think is better?
Thanks for Reading and Have a Great Day!
Dustin
