Pagespeed: What Is It and Why Is It Important for Every Website?
Technology, Tools and Tips around the topic of Pagespeed
- What is pagespeed?
- What impact does pagespeed have on Google ranking?
- How can I measure the pagespeed of a website?
- How should pagespeed results be evaluated?
- Which tools are suitable for measuring pagespeed?
- What are common measures to improve pagespeed?
- Conclusion on Pagespeed
Pagespeed - one of the most important factors for success in online marketing and yet too often underestimated. In this article, you will receive in-depth information about pagespeed, how it significantly influences your position on the Internet, and what you can do to take advantage of the numerous benefits for you and your website.
What is pagespeed?
Pagespeed (English for page load speed) is the speed at which a website loads its individual components. It refers to the loading time required until contents such as images, texts or videos can be fully displayed on a website. A fast pagespeed is rated positively as it increases the user-friendliness of the website and thus offers a better user experience.
What impact does pagespeed have on Google ranking?
Every website must pay attention to pagespeed as it is directly related to user experience and search engine optimization. A slow loading speed of a page can lead to a higher bounce rate, which in turn can result in a worse position in the search results. It is important for web designers and web developers to deal with this topic and develop strategies to improve the loading time of their websites.
Impact on User Experience
The User Experience of a website (English for user experience) is heavily influenced by pagespeed. If the loading time is high, visitors become impatient and leave the page before it has fully loaded. A slow pagespeed can therefore lead to an increased bounce rate, which results in a decrease in visitor numbers on the website and the resulting disadvantages.
Consequently, a high pagespeed has the advantage that the website is perceived as more attractive by users and is easier to use. The likelihood of users lingering on the website and engaging with its content & information increases. This can result in many additional benefits.
Advantages of a fast loading speed for user experience
Low bounce rates = higher number of users
Higher session duration
Higher user satisfaction
Better image (websites are the digital business card of companies)
Higher Conversion Rates
more leads
more sales
more engagement
Impact on search engine ranking (SEO)
Google only loves you when everyone else loves you first. - Wendy Piersall
Wendy Piersall's quote perfectly describes how Google works. If you want your website to rank at the top of Google, you must provide a high user experience. Because only then will users stay on your website and engage with your content. The easier your website is to use, the higher the chance that a user will linger on your pages for a long time. As a search engine, Google is always keen to present users with the best result, making the duration of a session on your website a crucial factor for success. A good user experience also includes pagespeed, as nobody likes to wait.
Conclusion: The faster your website loads, the higher you rank in Google (provided the other ranking factors do not deteriorate)
The most important factors for your loading time:
Images: Images are among the largest media on a website and can quickly lead to an increased loading time.
Caching: Caching stores content in the browser and speeds up the pagespeed. If caching is faulty, it can affect the loading time of the website.
Plugins: Plugins are helpful. Plugins are great. However, every plugin makes the website larger, which can affect loading time (except pagespeed plugins)
Code: The code of a website can cause unnecessary resource waste due to errors and duplicates and negatively affect the pagespeed.
Hosting: Hosting is a decisive factor for the loading time. Your website can be as fast as you want - if the server is slow, so is your website.
How can I measure the pagespeed of a website?
Page Speed, load times, website speed - what exactly is behind these terms?
The upload times of websites can be determined in different ways. In principle, it is clear that pagespeed ultimately always refers to the speed of the loaded content and is thus measured in seconds (or milliseconds).
Variant 1: Quick Test
The simplest way to determine the loading time of your website? Simply try it out. So call up the page and see what happens. Good idea? Not really.
This variant is very inaccurate and can be influenced and changed by various factors. Surely you were last often on your own website. This activated caching, which now leads to better results. Whether the pagespeed of your page is really that good can only be estimated with this simple variant.
Variant 2: Developer Tool
A more precise overview of the pagespeed is available in the developer tools in your browser. Go to your website, right-click and select "Inspect" from the menu. In the window that opens, click on the "Network" tab. When you reload the page, you will see a value called "Load" at the bottom of the window. This is the current loading time of your website. The value will not always be the same and will yield different results with each additional attempt. After a few repetitions, however, an average value can be derived.
Hot Tip: Activate the "Disable Cache" feature in the top menu bar. This will disable caching and it is imitated as if you are visiting the site for the first time. This gives you a better overview of how new users experience your website.
Variant 3: Online Tools with deep insights
Probably the best variant is using Tools. These offer deep insights into the technical settings of your website and provide an overview of the potentials for optimizing pagespeed. If you want to save time and quickly identify the biggest levers, you should use various tools to improve the loading time of the website. Developers & markers particularly like to use the Google Pagespeed Test, which is based on the Pagespeed Insight Score (also known as Lighthouse Pagespeed Test).
What's the Pagespeed Insights Score?
The Page Speed Insight Score is essential for all those who want to improve their Google ranking. The score serves as a key figure for evaluating the loading time of websites and is an integral part of the Lighthouse Pagespeed Check. It is calculated from various factors used to assess the loading time.
How is the pagespeed calculated?
The Google Pagespeed Test is based on more than just a single value. A variety of factors influence the overall value, which in the Lighthouse Pagespeed Tester from Google is always indicated in the range of 1-100 points. The higher the value, the better the website's performance. Users receive a comprehensive report on the loading time and numerous suggestions for pagespeed optimization in the overview.
Google's Web Vitals for good performance
In recent years, terms such as
Time to First Byte (TTFB)
Time to Interactive (TTI)
Speedindex
First Contentful Paint (FCP)
were the most important metrics for evaluating pagespeed. However, as Google increasingly focuses on the user-friendliness of websites, some of these criteria have been pushed further into the background and replaced by new ones. These key figures are still important for optimization, but are no longer the number 1 ranking factor in Google Pagespeed Insights. When Google wants to measure pagespeed, the Core Web Vitals are the pivot point:
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) measures the time it takes to load and display the largest visible content of a website. A low LCP value is desired as it indicates quick loading and good user experience.
First input delay (FID): The FID (First Input Delay) measures the reaction time of a website to user interactions (e.g. a click). A low FID value stands for fast website reactions and high performance.
Cumulative layout shift (CLS): The CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) assesses the visual stability of a website. A low CLS value is desirable as it indicates that the elements move little during loading.
How should pagespeed results be evaluated?
The evaluation of pagespeed depends on various factors and can vary from website to website. In general, marketers & website owners should aim to keep the loading time of their pages as low as possible and offer users a smooth and pleasant experience.
What is a good pagespeed?
Looking at the Google Pagespeed Insights, the goal should be to get into the green range. Therefore, website operators must achieve a score of 90 to 100 points.
Studies prove that the bounce rate of websites increases significantly from a loading time of over 3 seconds and website operators thus lose potential customers. (See https://www.pingdom.com/blog/page-load-time-really-affect-bounce-rate/)
Furthermore, it should be noted that the website not only loads quickly on the desktop, but also on the smartphone and all other devices. Especially in this area of optimization many webmasters fail. Responsive design is an indispensable ranking factor and should definitely be taken into account.
Which tools are suitable for measuring pagespeed?
Pagespeed is a factor that is not always easy to understand. Many factors influence the loading time of the website and make optimization seem like a complex task. Marketers also do not always have time to deeply engage with the technical optimization possibilities of websites and co. It is therefore all the more important to simplify life with helpful tools and focus on the basics.
Helpful tools for checking website speed
What are common measures to improve pagespeed?
Let pages load faster - but how?
Reducing the load time depends on many different factors and requires some knowledge in the field of website technology. Among other things, in addition to the optimization of images, server settings, handling HTML file, and CSS & JavaScript files play a role. Experienced web developers immerse themselves deeply in the world of a web server, analyze latency behavior, resource usage & various server settings. Always with the great goal of keeping the response time of a website as low as possible and offering visitors a pleasant user experience.
But even as a layperson, basic optimization can lead to a significant improvement and elevate the Google ranking and user experience to a new level.
Recommendations & approaches fort the optimization
Compression of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files
Optimizing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files can improve the loading time of a website. By minimizing the file size, removing superfluous code, and compressing files, the transmission speed can be increased.
Minimizing HTTP requests
Minimizing HTTP requests can improve loading time by reducing the number of required server requests. Fewer requests mean less effort and faster response times, because the server needs less time to process the individual requests.
Reduction of redirects
Reducing redirects can improve the load time by avoiding unnecessary redirects. Each redirect causes additional effort and additional waiting time, as additional server requests have to be made. By reducing redirects, direct access to the desired resources is enabled, leading to a faster website loading time.
Caching
Caching can improve the loading time by storing already retrieved resources. When you visit the website again, these resources can be directly retrieved from the cache. This results in faster loading times as fewer server requests have to be made. Caching can be optimized at the server & browser level.
Content Delivery Networks (CDNs)
A Content Delivery Network (CDN) can shorten the loading time of a website by distributing static resources such as images, CSS, and JavaScript files to servers at different geographical locations. This brings the content closer to the user and shortens transmission times. A CDN can also handle peak loads by distributing traffic across various servers. This reduces server load and the website can be loaded faster and more reliably, regardless of the geographical location of users.
Images
Images are among the largest media of a website and can quickly increase the loading time if used improperly. As a website operator, care should be taken to use images correctly. Especially the Compression of images has a great influence on the performance.
Hot Tip: Lazy Load! This feature can improve the loading time of websites by only loading images when they appear in the user's visible area. This shortens the initial loading time, as not all page content has to be loaded at once.
What are helpful tools for improving a higher pagespeed?
With a Tool, the implementation of the mentioned measures can usually be carried out more efficiently - less effort, more results. Tools have the advantage of being already oriented towards certain content management systems and can therefore be integrated quickly.
Tools for WordPress
Imagify
WP Super Cache
Tools for Shopify
Fuzz
Page Speed Optimizer
Hyperspeed
If you use a SEO tool, you should always make sure that display problems or other technical errors can occur on the website or in the online shop. Therefore, we recommend creating a back up before each installation and adjustment in the tool to be able to restore the original state in the event of errors.
Conclusion on Pagespeed
A fast pagespeed is crucial for the success of a website in online marketing. Because a fast loading time ensures better user-friendliness and an optimal user experience. This in turn leads to lower bounce rates, higher visitor satisfaction, longer sessions, and ultimately more leads, sales, and engagement. In addition, a fast loading time can lead to a better position in the search engine and thus bring additional users to the website. The optimization of pagespeed is a clear recommendation and should be considered by all advertisers and website owners.
Richard ist studierter Wirtschaftsingenieur und wissbegieriger Performance Marketer bei Skillisch Marketing und bietet daher eine gute Kombination, um die Situation von B2B Unternehmen auf digitaler Ebene einschätzen und optimieren zu können. Sein täglich Brot verdient er sich durch umfassende Analysen von Webseiten & Onlineshops mit Wachstumspotenzial. Die anschließenden Optimierungen basieren auf datengetriebenen Recherchen, stets mit dem Ziel, die Sichtbarkeit im Web, sowie die Conversion Rate über den digitalen Vertriebsweg zu steigern.
