Google PageSpeed Optimisation, also known as Google PageSpeed Insights or simply PageSpeed, refers to improving the loading speed and overall performance of a website to provide a better user experience.
If your website or web pages take more than 3 seconds to load, almost half of all users will leave the site, resulting in a loss of potential customers.
Google Page Speed Insights is a set of tools and recommendations that helps website developers identify and address issues that may be affecting the speed and performance of web pages.
PageSpeed optimisation involves analysing various factors that impact a website’s loading time, such as:
Server Response Time: Ensuring that the web server responds quickly to requests from users’ browsers.
Browser Caching: Utilising browser caching to store frequently accessed resources on the user’s device, reducing the need to re-download them on subsequent visits.
Image Optimisation: Compressing and optimising images to reduce their file size without significantly sacrificing quality.
Minification: Removing unnecessary characters like spaces, comments, and line breaks from code (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) to reduce file sizes.
Reducing Redirects: Minimising the number of redirects a user’s browser must follow before reaching the desired content.
Eliminating Render-Blocking Resources: Managing the loading of JavaScript and CSS files to prevent them from blocking page rendering.
Prioritising Visible Content: Making sure that the most important parts of a webpage load quickly, so users can see and interact with content without waiting for the entire page to load.
Mobile Friendliness: Ensuring that the website is responsive and optimised for mobile devices, as mobile performance is a significant factor in Google’s ranking algorithms.
Using Content Delivery Networks (CDNs): Distributing website content across multiple servers geographically to reduce latency and speed up content delivery.
Minimising Third-Party Scripts: Limiting the use of external scripts and resources that can slow down page loading.
Google PageSpeed Insights evaluates a webpage’s performance and provides a score and specific recommendations for improvements. It gives insights into how well a page performs on both mobile and desktop devices. The tool also offers suggestions and guidelines on addressing issues and enhancing page loading speed.
By implementing Google PageSpeed optimisation techniques, website owners can enhance user satisfaction, reduce bounce rates, and potentially improve their search engine rankings, as Google considers page speed as one of the factors in its ranking algorithm.