Yousuf Rafi
If your website takes 2 seconds to load, only 9.6% of customers are bouncing off your page. However, if the page is taking 7 seconds or more to load, an alarming 32% of customers are running away from your website. Brian Dean did a study in which he concluded that Google PageSpeed is one of the most relevant factors when it comes to revenue generation.
Marketers are finding ways to beat their competitors, eliminate friction, and make page loading time their competitive advantage to grab the attention of target customers. Plenty has been written to optimize a website for better speed, but nothing proves more useful than the Google PageSpeed Insights tool.
What exactly is the Google PageSpeed Insights tool?
Unless you are living in a cave, far far away from humans, you must have already heard about the Google PageSpeed Insights tool.
For others, it is an authentic tool by Google, designed to optimize the performance of the website.
The tool will give you an option to improve the performance of some aspects of the page which will boost the overall page speed. The tool can be used for both mobile and desktop which gives every website a chance to rise above their competitors.
1) Start by designing a responsive website
Imagine this. You’ve created an excellent website for desktop users. The interface, the colors, and the graphics are making users fall head over heels in love with the website. However, somewhere around the globe, some people hate your website. Why? Because when they try to access your website on a mobile device, the pixels are distorted. The design is displaced. Moreover, the so-called interface doesn’t seem aesthetically pleasing to them.
I don’t know about you, but as a marketing professional, I know what it feels like to design a website that is responsive in nature and works well across every device.
You can check the responsiveness of your website by visiting the following website.
A responsive website will improve the user experience which will help Google rank your website higher in the Google search pages.
Last year, Google launched its mobile-first indexing which gave mobile page load speed a significant place in their algorithms.
So, now you know that mobile page speed is vital to ranking your website in Google search results.
2) Optimize your images
Some people are already doing it while others don’t even pay attention to the pictures on the website.
As per the guidelines by Google, you need to incorporate quality images in your website.
Embed titles, and alt text in every image. Most importantly, use a sitemap for images which will help Google organize your photos in a better way. Use Squoosh to optimize your images.
Of course, using responsive images is a must. Furthermore, use safe search images which will increase your chances of ranking your website higher.
It is prudent to read the SEO guidelines before you start working on the SEO of the website.
3) Instead of quantity, focus on the quality of the code
If the code on your website is good, the webpage will load fast.
Use Pingdom to know precisely which of the codes on your website need more simplification.
Reduce the CSS code in your website. Try to use inline formatting whenever it is possible for you.
It is best advised to avoid any intensive WordPress themes or bulky codes.
Instead, it is better to use a clean HTML 5 template.
Google uses several machines to gather data from the website. If the code on the site is not well-structured. It will give Google a hard time. And this is not something you want for your website.
We can help you build simple, yet gorgeous websites.
Google PageSpeed Insights enables search engines to look for straightforward codes. And rank the websites based on the simplicity of the code.
4) Focus on Brower Cache
Whenever you visit a website, the web browser stores data such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and images in the local cache. This makes things easier when you visit the website the next time. When the cache is stored, it gives access to the same browser and reduces the delay that occurs when rendering the website. When the browser cache is implemented. And it will help load the website faster.
A professional hosting service might already be using a browser cache. However, if you want to implement the browser cache, you can always go for the W3 total cache plugin.
5) Accelerated Mobile Pages
When building a website, it is good to learn from the best. The best startup websites employ Accelerated Mobile Pages to pull up data and present it in a decluttered manner.
Here are the three reasons why you must use Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
A mere 1-second delay in loading the webpage can drop the conversion rates by 7%.
Studies have shown that using AMP pages to fetch data from a website can reduce the number of server requests by 77%. This means that a website will load faster regardless of the device used to browse the website.
6) When it comes to website design, less is more
A clean website is not always attention-grabbing for users but Google PageSpeed Insights necessitates website owners to simplify their website designs.
A clutter-free website design will reduce the load time of the website. Using simple triggers can boost the UX of your website.
The Speed Insight tool will help you eliminate all the extra space that your website is consuming, and you can ask your website developer to mitigate any further damage.
To conclude it all
As a skilled marketer, it is essential to learn website optimization and the holistic approach to every piece of the puzzle that constitutes the site. Furthermore, web speed optimization is an ongoing project. There is no limit to it. You can take six months and still feel that it is not enough.
However, PageSpeed Tool can help you ton. Use the above rules as a guideline and starting point to familiarize yourself with the tool, and start setting clear goals on how you plan to use it to craft your long-term content marketing strategy.
Ashad Rehman
