How to Check & Optimise Website Speed
If you understand the fundamentals of SEO which I explain in my SEO Starter Guide, you will know that having a website that loads fast or decently fast is crucial for good SEO. Because your website visitor is going to get impatient and frustrated if they land on your website page and it takes forever to load. In fact, they may even leave your website even before it fully loads - such a pity!
Many factors, such as your web hosting, image sizes and your page size, can affect your page load speed.
But how can you check if your website loads fast enough on desktop and mobile?
In other words:
How can you check your website page speed?
1) Using Google Page Speed Insights
You can check your page load speed using Google Page Speed Insights here.
Check your page speed scores. (Below images are the mobile & desktop page speed score of my blog site, The Noteway)
Make sure to pass core web vitals assessment for both mobile and desktop on Google Page Speed Insights.
According to Google, a score of 90 or above is good, 50 to 89 needs improvement, and below 50 is considered poor.
If you do not have the ideal Google Page Speed score of 90, do not worry. At least, aim to bring up your Google Page Speed Scores to 70 to 90 if possible.
Once again, you can compare with your top ranking competitors' page speeds if you are worried your page speed may be too slow, and that is the reason your web page is not getting ranked.
Mobile Page Speed as of November 2023 for https://thenoteway.com/
Desktop Page Speed as of November 2023 for https://thenoteway.com/
2) Using GT Metrix
Another way to check your website page speed is by using GT Metrix here.
If you do not have the ideal GTmetrix A Grade, do not worry. At least, aim to bring up your GTmetrix Grade to the B grade if possible.
GTmetrix Grade as of November 2023 for my blog site: https://thenoteway.com/
3 Simple Ways To Improve Your Website Page Speed
1. Compress Your Images
I recommend using TinyPNG for compressing images
I recommend image file sizes of below 1000kb
Wordpress & other website builders may have plugins to do this automatically
Check out these 8 WordPress plugins for Image Optimisation if you are using WordPress
2. Choose the right image format
JPEG
PNG
WebP (Smaller but not supported by every browser yet, hence would not recommend)
3. Engage an experienced Page Speed Expert
Assuming you are a non techy founder like me, you can engage an experienced page speed expert to improve your page speed..
Check out these Top 8 Website Page Speed Experts To Improve Page Speed here.
Make sure the experts you engage are able to
Minify javascript, CSS & HTML also known as Minification
Enable Browser Caching
Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN) if you don't already use one.
Just before engaging a freelancer, you can check your page speed and grade on GT Metrix here.
Before I engaged my freelancer, my blog website page speed was E Grade. After engaging him, he got my website to a B grade as shown below:
GTmetrix Grade as of November 2023 for my blog site: https://thenoteway.com/
The third way to improve your website page speed highlighted above will cost you a small amount of money.
But trust me, it is not worth your hassle and time to do this yourself as a founder, if you are seriously working towards to growing your business.
As long as you have the background knowledge and engage trusted freelancers with top ratings, your website will be in good hands.
Remember.
Having a good page speed is essential for SEO.
