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ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE: https://www.semrush.com/blog/page-speed

What Is Page Speed?

Page speed (also called “load speed”) measures how fast the content of a page loads. From an SEO standpoint, having a fast page speed is essential.

Many factors, such as your web hosting and your page size, affect page load speed. Page speed also differs on the desktop and mobile versions of a page.

In this article, you’ll discover how page speed affects SEO, find tools to measure it, and learn ways to improve it.

Why Is Page Speed Important for SEO?

Page load speed is a confirmed ranking factor on desktop and mobile.

In other words:

Faster loading times (along with other important signals) can contribute to higher rankings.

Page speed affects your search engine rankings because slow sites negatively affect user experience.

In fact, the probability of bounce almost triples if your page takes longer than three seconds to load, according to Google.

But it’s important to clarify:

“Page speed” is not a single metric. It acts as an umbrella term.

Why?

Because there are many ways to measure page speed. (Check out some tools that do so below.)

Say a user types a domain into their web browser and presses “enter.”

After a short time, the site opens.

Sometimes, the first thing the user sees is a blank page.

A few milliseconds (or seconds) later, users see some elements. Maybe a block of text or an image.

At a certain point, the user can interact with the page. They can click a button, for example.

While users wait, the content on the page might move around as new elements load.

And, eventually, the content of the page fully loads.

Sometimes, by the time the page loads completely, users have already found what they were looking for.

Other times, they have given up and left the page.

As you can see, a lot happens when you’re loading a site. And everything happens at a different pace.

You can measure each of these events separately. That’s why we say page speed is not a single metric, but many.

Common page speed metrics include the following:

• Time to First Byte (TTFB): How long it takes for the page to begin loading
• First Contentful Paint (FCP): How long it takes for the user to see the first element of a page (like an image)
• Onload time: How long it takes to fully load the content of a page

Next, we’ll provide guidance on what a good page speed is based on Google’s Core Web Vitals.

How Core Web Vitals Affect Page Speed

Google’s Core Web Vitals are a set of metrics that score the user experience of a page. Google uses these three metrics to get a picture of loading speed based on actual speed, webpage interactivity, and visual stability:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) measures how long it takes for your main content to load. It should be 2.5 seconds or less.
• First Input Delay (FID) measures how long it takes until a user can interact with a page. It should be of 100 milliseconds or less.
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) measures how often users experience layout shifts. Your CLS score should be 0.1 or less.

You need to understand Core Web Vitals to optimize page speed.

You can use these metrics to gauge how fast your page should be. Google classifies your site’s Core Web Vitals as “Good,” “Needs Improvement,” or “Poor.”

You can check your scores in the Core Web Vitals report in Google Search Console.

Note: Google says its page speed updates only negatively affect pages that deliver “the slowest experience.” But they recommend aiming for the “Good” threshold for best results. Once you hit that threshold, you won’t necessarily see huge gains by micro-optimizing your page speed by a few milliseconds.

To summarize:

Optimizing pages with poor performance should be your priority. Because Google can penalize your site if you don’t.

And above all:

Don’t put page speed before good content. Because relevance will always come first.

A page that loads a “tiny bit faster” won’t necessarily outrank other slower pages. Because relevance and search intent are more important.

So you should first prioritize creating content that meets users’ needs.

With that said, these are Google’s thresholds to evaluate the Core Web Vitals of a page:

The Core Web Vitals are part of a bigger set of quality signals called Web Vitals. This list constantly evolves and includes other relevant metrics like TTFB and FCP.

To learn more, read our guide to Core Web Vitals and how to improve them.

Tools to Check Your Page Load Time

Many tools can measure your page loading speed.

Bear in mind that each tool uses slightly different data, so your results may vary. Which means relying on a single tool can give you limited results.

That’s why it’s good practice to use various tools to check your site’s performance.

We recommend using Google’s PageSpeed Insights and a tool that doesn’t rely on Google’s data (like GTmetrix or Pingdom).

This will provide a broader view of your site’s health.

Depending on the tool, you’ll get results that use lab data, field data, or both.

Let’s see the differences:

• Field data represents real users visiting your site. It’s also known as Real User Measurement (RUM). It provides a clear picture of your site’s performance based on actual user conditions.
• Lab data (or synthetic measurement) comes from a controlled environment simulating specific device and network conditions. It’s helpful for debugging issues and testing features.

Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s analyze some of the best page speed tools.

Google PageSpeed Insights

Google PageSpeed Insights (PSI) is a free tool that measures a webpage’s performance.

Use it to check the Core Web Vitals for any URL, see performance data, and get recommendations for improvement.

PageSpeed Insights uses both lab data and field data.

It collects lab data from Google Lighthouse (more on that tool later) and field data from the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) data set.

To begin, go to PageSpeed Insights and paste the URL you want to measure into the search bar.

Note: You can only check one URL at a time—not a full site.

PageSpeed Insights shows statistics and recommendations for both desktop and mobile.

And shares valuable information about your page’s performance, accessibility, best practices, and SEO.

Read our PageSpeed Insights guide to learn how to improve your results.

Google Lighthouse

Google Lighthouse is a free tool that analyzes a site’s performance and user experience. It flags issues and shares suggestions to fix them.

Google Lighthouse uses lab data. And lets you analyze the performance of a full site—not just a single URL.

It reports on the following:

• Performance (via Core Web Vitals)
• Accessibility
• Best practices
• SEO
• Progressive Web Apps

You can use Google Lighthouse in different ways:

• Chrome DevTools (through Google Chrome’s “Inspect” option)
• Chrome extension
• Web User Interface (UI)
• Node module

To learn more, read our guide to Google Lighthouse and page speed.

WebPage Test

WebPage Test lets you run customized page load time tests based on different user conditions. Like location, browser, connection, etc.

So you can see how different users experience your page.

WebPage Test generates the following results:

• A waterfall graph to understand how the different elements on your site load
• Relevant metrics like TTFB, FCP, and total loading time
• Your Core Web Vitals (note that these may not match your PageSpeed Insights results, as the data is different.) Using both is a good way to see the big picture.
• And more

To start, visit WebPage Test, scroll down, and type your URL into the search bar.

If you select the “Simple Configuration” option, you’ll need to choose between a list of preset conditions. The tool recommends locations and browser presets:

After selecting your conditions, click “Start Test.”

Tip: Don’t know which option to select? Choose the country your target audience is closest to.

If none of these preset conditions meet your needs, select “Advanced Configuration” to customize your test.

The results look like this:

Pingdom Website Speed Test

The Pingdom Website Speed Test is a free tool that analyzes a page’s load time and shares recommendations to improve it.

This tool analyzes a specific URL rather than your entire site.

Go to the Pingdom Website Speed Test and enter a URL.

Then choose the location of the server. Pick the one closest to your users. (If you have a global site, run different tests and compare the results.)

The tool will display your page size, load time, number of HTTP requests, and recommendations.

GTmetrix

GTmetrix is a free tool that measures a page’s performance. You can choose the location for each test.

This tool generates a report that includes the following:

• Your structure score
• Your performance score
• Your Core Web Vitals score
• A speed visualization graphic
• Recommendations to improve performance
• And more

Go to GTmetrix, enter your URL, and click “Test your site.”

You can only check one URL at a time.

Note: To choose the server’s location for the test, you’ll need to register (for free). Otherwise, the test will use a default server located in Vancouver, Canada.

Here’s is what your GTmetrix report will look like:

It includes a quick summary right at the top so you can assess performance at a glance. Plus a “Speed Visualization” chart.

Semrush Site Audit

If you want to go one step further (and get page speed information), conduct a full technical audit with Semrush’s Site Audit tool.

Site Audit includes over 140 on-page and technical SEO checks.

To check a website’s loading speed, go to the Site Audit tool, enter your URL in the search bar, and click the “Start Audit” button.

Then, configure your Site Audit. Click “Start Site Audit.”

You’ll see a dashboard similar to this one:

Visit the “Site Performance” report to check your load speed, performance issues, and more.

When fixing these issues, prioritize “Errors.” Then, move on to “Warnings.”

Another useful section is the “Core Web Vitals” report.

It shows your Core Web Vitals score per page (and recommended improvements):

5 Ways to Improve Your Page Speed

When you analyze your page (or site) with a page speed tool, you’ll get many recommendations to improve its performance.

Some fixes are simple. But if you need guidance on more technical tasks, we recommend consulting a developer.

Let’s analyze the five most common ways to improve page load speed time.

1. Compress Your Images

Images often contribute to slow pages. Compressing your images is one of the quickest solutions to improve your page speed and SEO rankings.

If you can afford to sacrifice a little bit of image quality, you can probably improve your page speed.

Your goal should be to keep images as small as possible without compromising quality or user experience.

Say you want to upload an image that is 1MB and measures 3000 x 2500 pixels.

You can resize your image using a free image resizer like PicResize.

Upload your image to the tool. And select how much smaller you want your image to become (e.g., 50% smaller).

After you make your image as small as possible without compromising quality, use an image optimizer like ImageOptim to shrink it even further.

Simply run your image through the tool, and it’ll do its magic.

Always do this before you upload images to your site.

Pro tip: If you use WordPress as your content management system (CMS), optimize images with a plugin like Smush. It lets you optimize images in bulk to save time.

Choose the Right Image Format

Different types of images require different image file formats.

Some formats are lighter than others because they offer higher compression levels. Choose the right format for each image to lower your page’s load time.

Let’s analyze the most common formats and how to use them:

• JPEG: Good for real-world images, like photographs
• PNG: Good for screenshots, designs, logos, or images with a higher level of detail
• GIFs: If possible, avoid this format, as it will slow down your page. If you need an animated image, consider converting your GIF into a video.
• WebP: This file type is becoming increasingly popular because it’s much lighter than JPEG and PNG (up to three times smaller, in fact.) In the future, it will probably become the standard. However, not every browser supports WebP images yet. So we’d recommend using JPEG and PNG for now.

Pro tip: If you use WordPress, plugins like EWWW Optimizer convert your images into WebP. The plugin will show a JPEG or PNG version of the image if the user opens your site with a browser that doesn’t support WebP files.

2. Reduce HTTP Requests

HTTP requests happen when web browsers send “requests” to a website’s server for more information.

Say a user visits a page. The server gets a request from the browser and answers with a file containing information the user needs to view the page. (This file could contain text, images, multimedia, etc.) The user can’t view what’s in the file until the request is complete.

But if that file doesn’t contain all the information the user needs to view the page, the browser will send another request.

The more requests, the more your page speed slows down. The user will have to wait longer to view the entire page.

Aim to reduce HTTP requests (or to make them load faster) to improve your page speed.

To view a page’s number of HTTP requests, use Google Chrome.

Open your page on Chrome. Right-click anywhere on the page and choose “Inspect.”

You’ll see Google’s developer tools (also called Chrome DevTools). Go to the “Network” tab.

At first, the panel will have few to zero entries. Reload the page to collect data.

You’ll see all HTTP requests, their sizes, and the time it takes to load them. These include requests for images, plugins, JavaScript or CSS files (more on those later), and many more.

You can also see the total number of requests in the bottom-left corner of the inspect window.

This number is a good way to track your progress. The fewer requests, the better.

For context, the average page sends around 70 HTTP requests. However, there isn’t a specific number to aim for. Use the average number of requests on your webpages as guidance to track your progress.

Tip: Read about Chrome’s Network panel to learn more.

Tools like GTmetrix also count a page’s HTTP requests and group them by type:

Use this tool to get a broad view of your site’s HTTP requests.

Once you identify the requests, you can start fixing them. Unless you are highly knowledgeable in this arena, your safest course of action is likely to consult with an experienced developer to reduce your HTTP requests.

3. Minify JavaScript, CSS, and HTML

Minimizing JavaScript, CSS, and HTML can improve your page speed.

In fact, Google’s John Mueller says minification is “worth looking into” because it can reduce file size.

Start by removing line breaks, white space, or other unnecessary elements in the code that don’t impact user experience.

This is what standard CSS code looks like:

And this is what it looks like after minification:

The original version is easier to read for humans. But the minified version is simpler and easier to process for a computer—which is how minification improves page speed.

You can use an online minifier tool to minify your files. And if you own a WordPress website, a plugin like WP Rocket can help you minify your code.

Note: Some tools combine CSS and JavaScript files to improve performance (though it’s unnecessary if your site uses HTTP/2 or HTTP/3).

So combining CSS and JavaScript files is only helpful for page speed if your site uses HTTP/1.

To check which HTTP protocol your site uses, go to Google Chrome, right-click anywhere on the page, and hit “Inspect.” Then, go to the “Network” tab.

Check the “Protocol” column. You’ll see the protocol that each of your internal resources uses.

If they’re using “h2” or “h3” protocols (HTTP/2 and HTTP/3), you don’t need to combine your CSS and JavaScript files.

Side note: Can’t see the “Protocol” column? Right-click the chart label panel, and check “Protocol.”

4. Enable Browser Caching

Browser caching is when a user’s browser temporarily stores webpage data. So when the user returns to the page, it loads faster.

Why?

Because the first time a user enters your page, their browser stores many elements (like images or CSS files).

That way, the browser doesn’t need to send as many requests when the user returns.

(This improves the experience of recurring users. But it won’t make a difference for users entering your site for the first time.)

To enable browser caching on a WordPress site, you can use plugins like W3 Total Cache or WP Rocket.

Advanced tip: If you don’t use WordPress, you can add browser caching rules to your .htaccess file. (But you can break your site if you make a mistake, so we recommend consulting a developer).

5. Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is a group of interconnected servers distributed across different locations. They bring your site “closer” to each user.

And pages load faster for users that are geographically close to the server where the site is located.

A CDN works like so:

1. You cache your site on a CDN
2. A user sends a request to open your site
3. The server that’s closest to the user delivers the site

Say your origin server is in Los Angeles.

If a user in Italy tries to access your site, your CDN will find the closest server in the user’s network. (Let’s say it’s in France.) The CDN will then deliver a cached version of your site to the server in France.

Since Italy is much closer to France than to Los Angeles, your website loading speed will improve.

Good examples of CDNs are Cloudflare and Jetpack.

To learn more, read our guide to CDNs and how they work.

Page Speed and Technical SEO

Monitoring your page load speed time is just one of the many steps that can improve your SEO rankings.

To learn more about technical SEO, check these resources:

• What Is Technical SEO? Basics and 10 Best Practices
• On-Page and Technical SEO Course [Free video course on Semrush Academy]
• How to Perform a Complete SEO Audit (in 15 Steps)

 

Why is my site slow?

Courtesy of GoDaddy!
http://support.godaddy.com/help/article/7324/why-is-my-site-slow

If you’re still stumped, please try to find patterns in slowness before you contact help or tech support so we can handle your case quickly. Patterns to look for:

• Is your site slow only during certain hours of the day?
• Is your site slow only from certain geographic locations?
• Are only certain pages of your site slow?
• Do you host multiple alias domains on your account? If so, are they all slow, or just one?
• Do you run multiple Web applications on your account? If so, are they all slow, or just one?
• Do you run multiple plugins, modules, or themes for your Web application? If you disable them, does your site speed up?
• Is your connection to other websites slow?

Any additional information you can provide will help our tech support track down the issues quickly.

Top 5 Website Performance Problems

Courtesy of GoDaddy!

Knowing how to improve your website’s performance is important. We use tools like P3 Profiler, Yslow, Pagespeed, andWebPageTest.org to diagnose poor Web page performance. For more information on using tools to determine site slowness, see Why is my site slow?

It’s quite possible that your website is slow because of one of the five issues below. Check them out, and see how they relate to your site.

1. Page Size — The bigger your page, the longer it takes to download, especially over slower connections.Big images are probably the number one cause of slow loading pages. Most image creation software has image compression options. There are also online tools, such as Smushit by Yahoo®! that can help you compress large images. You should make sure that each image on your website is optimized for the Web. Also, resize images to fit the width and height you want them to display on your page. We often see people upload giant 2000-plus pixels-wide images they snapped with their digital cameras and then use the width and height parameters to shrink them, like this <img width=”500″ height=”300″>. Don’t do that. If you say width=”500″ height=”300″ in your img tag, the image should be optimized and 500×300 pixels.
2. Time to 1st Byte — An increased time to 1st byte means there are too many SQL queries or non optimized SQL queries. This can also include server-side calls to third-party API. If you’re running WordPress, get the WordPress Plugin P3 Profiler to discover what plugins are running what queries and how long each one takes.If you’re a WordPress user, there are a number of plugins you can check out. We’ve seen caching plugins affect performance both positively and negatively on customer sites and it’s largely dependent upon the traffic, and how dynamic the site is. Popular choices for WordPress are WP Super Cache, W3 Total Cache, Batcache and Tribe Object Cache. These plugins offer various page, database and browser cache features. Try each one out (one at a time, not all at once) and see what works best for you.
3. Total Objects and Third-Party Objects — Too many objects on your page will require visitors’ browsers to perform the request and receive pattern too many times and slow down your page. Try combining JavaScript and CSS. Use sprites for your images. You could use mod_pagespeed to help automate this for your site. For more information, see Which mod_pagespeed functions do you support? Also be wary of how many third-party domains you’re using. Too many social buttons cause problems. If you use WordPress, you might want to check out the WordPress plugin Lazy Social Buttons.
4. Cached Objects — You want browsers caching your site. You need to instruct the Web server to enable expires headers on your static objects. This tells browsers to cache the site. This is not currently enabled by default on our Windows hosting plans, but is available for Linux plans. For more information, see Enabling mod_expires with Your Hosting Account.
5. Text Compression — If you don’t have text compression turned on, your page is going to be slow. We turn this on by default on our Web Hosting plans, so your if your page is suffering from this, it’s either because of third-party objects, or it somehow got disabled on your hosting account. See Enabling mod_deflate with Your Hosting Account for more information.

And finally, use Website Accelerator to speed up your site. See Why should I use Website Accelerator? for more information.