Wondering why your website is loading slowly?
Concerned that the speed of your website may affect your SEO?
Are you hoping to boost your existing SERP rankings?
If you are here, there is a good chance that you are hoping to learn how to speed up your website.
And we have good news: Increasing your website loading speed not only benefits your users but can also help you get more organic traffic from Google.
You can help boost your website's search visibility by:
- Use a website speed test tool that monitors your website speed in real time.
- Make high-impact changes.
So, let's take a look at how to check if your website is performing well enough to impress Google, as well as what you can do to make it faster.
Why is site speed important for SEO?
In 2021, Google introduced the Page Experience Update, which confirmed a key piece of SEO info - website speed is a ranking factor.
This means that Google prefers websites that load quickly and smoothly for your visitors.
There is a greater chance that Google will display faster websites before slow websites on search engine results pages (SERPs).
What factors does Google look for in relation to website speed?
There are many factors that affect website speed, but Google has made it easy for you to find out.
Prior to updating the Page Experience algorithm, Google created a set of three metrics called Core Web Vitals, and these metrics are used to determine your website's speed and usability.
These three key metrics can help you navigate the pages and parts of a website that affect site speed and user experience - this makes it easy to determine why your website's ranking is low.
Google Basic Web Essentials
To make sure your website ranks well, you'll need to make sure you pay attention to the following:
- Largest Content Charge (LCP): How fast can content be displayed?
- First Input Delay (FID): How quickly does the page respond to user interaction?
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): Is the page layout stable or does the content change after loading?
When you enter your website into Google Search Console or Core Web Vitals monitoring tool, you will get the result and the affected pages, along with a green, yellow or red notation.
If your website has red or yellow flags, it's time to use a website speed test tool to detect what needs to be fixed on your site.
What tools can you use to test site speed?
Dedicated site speed testing tools can provide a lot of high-quality data and recommendations on how to improve your site speed.
These types of tools have been created specifically for speed tests and can give you every bit of information you need to increase your site's load times.
Try these dedicated site speed testing tools:
- DebugBear Website Speed Test.
- WebPageTest.
- GTmetrix.
We'll be using the free DebugBear test tool in this article, but you can also use an alternative like WebPageTest or GTmetrix.
In addition to the above tools, there are also insight tools that can help you understand local site speed and lab test site speed.
Test site speed locally on your PC
Chrome DevTools can provide a lot of in-depth data on how your website loads.
However, testing on your computer makes the test result highly dependent on your local environment. It can also be difficult to manually clear all relevant caches to match the user experience for the first time.
Google Site Speed Tool
PageSpeed Insights is great for getting a quick overview of your site's speed. You can get real user data and suggestions on how to speed up your website based on lab testing. However, because it uses throttling simulation, the lab data is not always accurate.
How to test a website with DebugBear
Testing your site speed with DebugBear takes only seconds.
To run a web performance test:
- Visit: go to debugbear.com/test.
- Test: Enter the URL of your website.
- Review: View your results; View metrics and in-depth debug data that you can use to understand metrics and make changes.
Let's dive into some metrics and learn how to speed up your site.
Aim for a score of 75%+ for maximum SERP rankings
One of the main metrics that the DebugBear Website Speed Test gives you is your "real user score".
This percentage helps you understand how well your website will perform in the real world - with real users.
Based on data that Google collects from real Chrome users, this number shows the percentage of users who have a good experience on your website - this data is what is used as a rating indication.
Aim for a score of at least 75% for maximum rank boost.