According to Google, patience isn’t a virtue and the probability of users leaving your site triples if your page takes longer than three seconds to load. This means no conversions.
Studies have shown that the quicker the site loads, the more likely visitors are to complete a desired action.
In this blog, we’ll explain what page speed is and its impact on SEO and conversion rates, along with how to identify the issue or issues causing slow lead times.
What is page speed?
Page speed reports on how quickly the content on a page loads for a user. This includes all content on the page such as text, images, and videos, as well as other interactive elements, such as infographics, interactive maps etc.
Things are more complex when measuring page speed though, tools such as Google PageSpeed Insights analyse the responsiveness and visual stability of your site as well.
Page speed can vary on desktop and mobile versions of a site and can be affected by several factors such as the below:
- Hosting
- A number of images/videos and the formats used
- A number of plugins/widgets used
- File sizes
- Code used to develop the site
As a result, it is important to explore the best practices regarding website speed, get familiar with the tools to measure it and learn ways to improve it.
What is the best practice when it comes to page speed?
According to Unbounce, 70% of users admit their willingness to buy from an online retailer is impacted by the web speed, and the slower the site loads, the more likely they are to drop.
As a result, a 0-4 second load time is best for conversion rates. Furthermore, according to a survey by Portent, for B2B, a site that loads in 1 second has a conversion rate 3x higher than a site that loads in 5 seconds. Pretty important, isn’t it?
In comparison, for e-commerce sites, a site that loads in 1 second has a conversion rate 2.5x higher than a site that loads in 5 seconds.
This data gets more interesting when we look at other industries. Google provides statistics on speed index which indicates how quickly the page loads for a user.
The average numbers are concerning, and as a result, page speed should be at the forefront of many business owners’ minds.
(the lower the score, the better)
Is page speed a ranking factor?
According to Google’s official documentation, Google’s core ranking systems look to reward content that provides a “good page experience”.
But, what is page experience in Google’s eyes?
Page experience is a ranking factor that sets out clear guidelines for grading your users’ experience, and when it comes to website speed, this involves:
- Loading time: Pages should load quickly, especially on mobile, and within 1 to 3s ideally.
- Responsiveness: Buttons and links should work instantly – our blog on internal linking covers the importance of those in more detail.
- Stability: Text and images should remain fixed during loading.
- Mobile-friendliness: The website should fit the frame on any device.
Here is also a great video explaining page experience by Google Search Central:
While page speed is crucial for user experience, it doesn’t always directly affect search rankings.
What do we mean by this?
High-quality, relevant content can outrank faster-loading sites where the content is not written for the user. Prioritising content quality should always be a top priority, even if it means a slightly slower page speed.
However.
This is important.
After July 5, 2024, websites that aren’t accessible on mobile devices won’t be indexed or ranked by Google.
Therefore, it’s all about the balance. Essentially, Google evaluates various signals including content quality, the ability to offer Expertise, Experience, Authority, and Trustworthiness (EEAT) alongside mobile-friendliness, security, and speed. Together, these factors paint a comprehensive picture of page experience.
How do you identify page speed issues?
You can use tools such as Google’s PageSpeed Insights to help you identify the areas of the site that are causing delays.
Google gives you a list of metrics (we’ll cover this in more detail below) that contribute to the score which indicates the issues.
It also provides a score between 0 and 100 to indicate your site’s performance and the higher the score, the better your website is optimised for speed and efficiency. Then, it gives you suggestions on how to improve.
Remember, PageSpeed Insights provides insights for a single page only. Your homepage is always a good example to start with as it is one of the most visited pages on the site. Focus on your priority pages as well, including category and landing pages.
How to Use the Google PageSpeed Insights Tool
- Go to Google Page Speed Insights (https://pagespeed.web.dev/), enter the URL you’d like to look into (whether it’s your own or a competitor’s), and click “Analyze:”
For this document, we used the tofu brand https://tofoo.co.uk/ as an example.
- Your analysis will only take a few seconds to complete, providing you with a score for both mobile and desktop versions of your site, ranging from 0 to 100. You will also see a list of opportunities to improve the page’s performance.
It’s worth mentioning that smaller sites may not have any results displayed, especially if your website has been recently published or has too few samples from real users.
The report relies on user data and if your site hasn’t got sufficient traffic, the report won’t be completed.
How to analyse the PageSpeed Insights Report
PageSpeed Insights (PSI) reports on the user experience of a page on both mobile and desktop devices, using the below classification which indicates the areas for improvement.
This classification is also a part of Core Web Vitals which are important performance signals that impact all web experiences:
Core Web Vitals
In terms of decoding the acronyms, the below explains those in detail:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) – Measures loading performance of the largest image, video or text block. Best practice is to have LCP of up to 2.5 seconds of the page starting to load.
- First Input Delay (FID) – Measures how quickly the page responds to a user’s actions, for example from the time they click a link or button to the browser’s response to that click. Best practice is to have an FID of less than 100 milliseconds.
In March 2024, Interaction to Next Paint (INP) replaced FID as a Core Web Vital.
INP measures the latency of all interactions with the page instead of focusing just on the first one. By interaction, we mean the visual elements such as an item you add to an online shopping cart or whether a mobile navigation menu has opened. To provide a good experience in terms of your INP, it needs to be below 200 milliseconds.
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): Measures visual stability, i.e whether the page suddenly changes or moves – for example when you’re about to click a specific link, and the page shifts causing you to click another link. To provide a good user experience, strive to have a CLS score of less than 0.1.
Score
Once you’re familiar with the acronyms and what they mean, it’s time to delve into the scores.
At the top of each metric are their scores indicating whether the website needs improvement.
- A score of 90 or above is considered good.
- 50 to 89 is a score that needs improvement.
- Below 50 is considered poor.
Based on the score, you can move on to recommendations, which is the section below the scores and the metrics.
How to Improve Your Google PageSpeed Insights Score
Based on our example, we have an extensive list of suggestions which will vary from site to site.
Some suggestions may be easy to implement such as image compression and ensuring those are served in next-gen formats, while others may require a developer to reduce unused JavaScript, for example.
Below, we will go through the most popular issues to give you an understanding of the issues and ways to fix them:
Serve Images in Next-Gen Formats
AVIF and WebP are the preferred image formats that stand out due to their compression and quality features compared to well-known and used JPEGs and PNGs. This means that the images will load faster.
If you’re using WordPress, there are many plugins you can use to convert the existing images into the recommended formats.
Please remember that there are many things to consider before adding a plugin:
- Check your selected plugin’s compatibility with your version of WordPress – here is how to check your current version.
- Test the plugin to ensure this is working as expected and the images are converted. Also, check the site to ensure it works as expected and there are no conflicts causing functionality issues.
- Test the speed of the site once the plugin is implemented
Optimise Your Images
Are your images appropriately sized? In many cases, websites use images that are not properly sized, and therefore resizing those will help you improve your page load time.
Below is an example from tofoo.co.uk.
To resize your images, you can use the below tools:
- Check the current sizing of the uploaded images – are they simply too large?
- Compress your images using a tool like TinyPNG before uploading them to your website
- Consider converting the current image format to WebP as recommended above
- Consider lazy-loading to ensure that you’re only displaying images or videos when they are visible to the user. This means that once a user lands on your page, not all the media will be loaded at the same time but only when the user scrolls down to reach a given image or video. Within WordPress, there are plugins available to achieve this, such as Lazy Load, however, please consider the recommendations we listed above when adding a new plugin to the site.
Reduce the impact of third-party code
Third-party code includes plugins, as well as scripts that are embedded onto your site from a third-party vendor, such as:
- Social sharing buttons (Facebook, X, LinkedIn)
- Video player embeds (YouTube, Vimeo)
- Advertising iframes
- Analytics & metrics scripts
- A/B testing scripts for experiments
Some of the above are useful such as analytics tools, but there are instances where sites use irrelevant and unnecessary third-party code. In the PageSpeed Insights report, the recommendation tab will list any third-party code for you to assess.
As mentioned, many sites will have Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics running which is not an issue, but pay attention to any names you are not familiar with and no longer need. Once you have identified third-party code that is redundant, you may need to work with the developer to ensure this is removed without any impact on the site. In the next paragraph, we talk about page speed issues that require a developer.
When a developer is needed
There may be elements that require a developer to look into such as the below. Most of the site wonders won’t be able to work with code and therefore extra help is needed.
- Render-blocking JavaScript – this is common for larger sites where multiple users add code to the site without communicating with each other or checking the existing code. This can slow down the overall page speed as the code is usually loaded before the page content. This needs to be looked at by an experienced developer to ensure that only a relevant code is removed without affecting the site.
- Redirects – although redirects are fine to use, there are instances when there are multiple redirects implemented, known as redirect chains. Those can slow down your site significantly. Tools such as Screaming Frog or Semrush can help you identify the issue.
Final thoughts
In today’s competitive world, page experience is a vital element when it comes to ensuring that your site ranks well.
According to Google, ensuring that you answer ‘yes’ to the below questions means that you are taking the right steps to overcome any issues:
- Do your pages have good Core Web Vitals?
- Does your content display well on mobile devices?
Whether you require a developer or not, using this guide, you can check your site speed and make an informed decision about the next steps. However, if this is something you would like help with please get in touch with us today. We also offer a free website audit to identify issues such as slow page load.