Page loading speed is, without a doubt, like the engine of a Formula 1 car: essential for User Experience and, consequently, for the effectiveness of your Digital Marketing strategies . In this regard, Google PageSpeed Insights can be your strategic pit stop!
In addition to improving usability, speed also impacts Google search rankings. In other words, the faster you cross the finish line (browsing), the better your position on the podium (ranking)!
Are you interested? Keep reading because I’m going to show you how to use the full potential of this essential tool for SEO strategies.
What is Website Performance Optimization
You might be wondering: why is website performance so important? Think of your website’s performance like the efficiency of a coffee shop on a Monday morning — the faster and smoother the service, the more satisfied and likely your customers will be to return.
In addition to a better User Experience, it increases the likelihood of visitors interacting more with your content and generating conversion into sales.
This was proven by a study by Kissmetrics. The research showed that every second of delay in loading generates 7% fewer conversions on a website.
And what’s more! About 40% of customers abandon a website that takes more than three seconds to load. Amazing, isn’t it?
Another point is that Google takes into account the optimization of pages — of a website, blog or landing page, for example — as a ranking factor in its SERP.
In practice, this means that a faster website has a better chance of reaching the top of Google and leaving the user more satisfied, because they understand that the website is relevant and care about the performance of their domain.
Therefore, by maintaining a website that delivers a good browsing experience, you gain a competitive advantage and increase your organic traffic!
The relevance of PageSpeed Insights
Google PageSpeed Insights (PSI) is like a trusted mechanic for your website. A free tool that analyzes the performance of a web page, providing detailed information for optimization.
Basically, it evaluates both the desktop and mobile versions of the website to provide a score on loading speed and usability.
With this data, you can identify and fix issues that affect your website’s performance.
Performance evaluation
To perform the assessment, the tool provides important metrics, such as page load time and speed score, based on several factors.
For example, when analyzing a page, the PSI provides a score ranging from 0 to 100, indicating how well the page is performing.
It is accompanied by metrics that show different aspects of performance, which we will see later.
And, for a page — like Enjoy Minder, about Digital Marketing services — to be in the first position, we must maintain its good score:
Identifying opportunities for improvement
One of the main features of PageSpeed Insights is to identify optimization opportunities that can improve page performance.
It shows you a possible solution to solve specific problems that affect usability.
Some of the recommendations are:
- Reduce image size without compromising quality, to speed up loading time;
- Improve server configuration to reduce response time;
- Remove whitespace and comments to reduce file size and speed up loading;
- Configure the cache to store common resources in the user’s browser, reducing loading time on subsequent visits;
- Compress files using Gzip or other methods to reduce transfer size;
- Reduce the use of external scripts and plugins to decrease http requests.
Each suggestion comes with an explanation and often links to additional resources to help you better understand how to apply the recommendations.
Desktop and mobile
Understanding the differences between desktop and mobile scores is necessary to ensure a great User Experience, regardless of the feature used.
PSI analysis highlights exactly these differences, helping developers identify issues in each version of the site.
For example, charging speed may vary between devices due to factors such as:
- Internet connection quality;
- Processing capacity of devices;
Feature prioritization may also differ:
- On the desktop, the priority may be to quickly load heavy content;
- On mobile, the emphasis is on optimizing for slower connections and smaller screens.
Furthermore, responsiveness and adaptability of design are extremely important for usability on mobile devices.
With Google prioritizing mobile performance thanks to its mobile-first index, you need to ensure your site is optimized for smartphones.
Otherwise, you may lose traffic and disappear from the radar (i.e. from search rankings). And we don’t want that, right?
In other words, in addition to improving performance and usability, it also contributes to better results in terms of SEO, increasing the visibility of your website on the Internet.
How to use Google PageSpeed Insights
Using PageSpeed Insights is as simple as making a cup of coffee.
See below how to do it:
- Access Google PageSpeed Insights through the website ;
- Enter the URL of the page you want to analyze in the indicated field and click “Analyze”;
- Please wait. The tool will take a few seconds to process the page and generate the results;
- The PSI will present an overall score, which ranges from 0 to 100, with indicative colors being green (90-100) for good, yellow (50-89) for needing improvement and red (0-49) for poor performance.
This score is a weighted average of several performance metrics , including loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability.
The PSI also presents suggestions for improvement, divided into different categories, such as optimization opportunities and diagnostics.
The LCP, FID and CLS metrics
The main metrics provided by PageSpeed Insights are:
- LCP (Largest Contentful Paint): measures the rendering time of the largest visible element in the viewport. When optimized, it ensures fast loading of the main content;
- FID (First Input Delay): evaluates interactivity, measuring the time from the user’s first action until the browser’s response;
- CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift): measures visual stability by evaluating unexpected changes in page layout.
It’s not just “how to increase speed”
Website speed optimization goes beyond speeding up loading times. It involves SEO strategies and improving the User Experience (UX).
Think of it like the foundation of a house: without a solid foundation, everything else is compromised!
When your website loads quickly, it not only provides a more pleasant user experience, but it also signals to Google that you are committed to delivering quality and relevance.
This is very important, because Google wants to recommend pages that, in addition to responding to search queries, provide fluid and efficient navigation.
To give you an idea, a faster website generates:
- Improved interaction metrics;
- Increased user engagement;
- Lower bounce rate;
- Higher conversion rates;
- Increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.
By optimizing your website speed, you are actually improving the entire ecosystem of your digital presence!
It’s an effort that goes far beyond loading time and that reverberates in every user interaction, impacting both the perception of your brand and the results of your business.
A complete optimization
An important point about PSI is that it should not be used alone when evaluating performance and charging speed!
In addition, there are other forms of analysis that can complement the data:
- Lighthouse: Google’s own automated extension to improve the quality of web pages. It can be used to improve performance, accessibility, web applications and SEO;
- GTmetrix: Provides an analysis of page performance, including optimization suggestions and a history for monitoring over time;
- Pingdom: Provides insight into site speed and uptime so developers can spot issues and monitor uptime.
These tools complement PageSpeed Insights by providing a 360° view of digital performance and ensuring that your website is not only fast, but also optimized in every possible way!
Nobody likes to be kept waiting!
If there’s one thing we’ve learned throughout this text, it’s that using Google PageSpeed Insights isn’t just a technical detail, but rather a crucial factor that can make all the difference in your Digital Marketing strategies.
And, as we have seen, a good loading speed has a direct impact on your chances of ranking better in search engines, increasing the visibility of your website and, consequently, attracting more qualified traffic!
At the end of the day, it all comes down to offering fluid and fast navigation that captivates the user and keeps their attention — and that is a huge competitive differentiator.
If you need help putting these strategies into practice, count on Enjoy minder! We are an agency specialized in SEO and we are ready to help you transform your website’s performance.
Get in touch with our experts and find out how we can take your digital presence to the next level!
