In the fast-paced world, where people want every service and product to be available on-demand, you can’t expect your audience to wait for your website to load.
A website’s loading speed is quite important from a user experience point of view. Today, people make an instant judgment about you and your business. If your website loads quickly, you make a strong first impression. On the contrary, if your site takes too long to respond, your audience may think that it is insecure and untrustworthy.
In addition to this, website speed is a significant ranking factor. Back in 2010, Google announced that the page speed would be a major ranking factor. And now, it is applicable for mobile searches as well.
If you notice your site is loading slow, check your website speed. There are plenty of tools available that let you see your site’s performance and also give recommendations on how to improve it.
We will learn about these tools, but before that, let’s have a quick look at some website speed stats that everyone must know.
- According to Google, around 53% of mobile users abandon a webpage that takes more than 3 seconds to load.
- 46% of people say that they hate waiting for pages to load when surfing the internet on mobile devices.
- 52% of buyers commit that quick page loading is essential to their loyalty toward a website.
These stats exhibit how vital website speed is today’s scenario.
Now let’s have a look at how you can track your website speed.
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Top Tools to Analyze Your Website Speed
1. GTmetrix
GTmetrix has gained enough popularity over the past few years, and for good reasons. Unlike other performance testing tools, it comes with a lot of features such as PageSpeed, YSlow Score, Waterfall Chart, Page Load Video, Page Load Timings, and Filmstrip. As a result, you get insights into different areas of your site.
This free tool, developed by Carbon60, features an eye-pleasing UX design, making it easy-to-navigate. You can use this tool in just three easy steps:
- Go to Gtmetrix.com
- Add your URL in the field
- Click on the Test your Site button
In a second or two, you will see how your website performs and why it is slow. Besides this, you also get to know about a lot of speed optimization opportunities.
You can see your results in both scores and grades. It means even if you’re not technically sound, you can quickly identify the causes of your website’s poor performance.
2. Pingdom
Pingdom is famous for its user-friendliness and detailed analysis. What makes this tool different from others is, you can test your web page speed from multiple locations that include North America, Asia, Europe, Australia, and South America.
To perform a speed test on Pingdom, you need to add your webpage address in the URL field, select your testing zone, and click on the Start Test button. It is as simple as that.
Seeing its results is equally straightforward. Along with the scores, you get performance grades. Moreover, you can also see statistics on page size, load time, and the number of requests your website receives.
Speaking of suggestions, you also see them grade-wise. For example, if too many HTTP requests are the culprit behind the reduced website loading speed, you may see it in A grade.
3. WebPage Test
Although this speed testing tool is not well-designed, you can rely on its quick results. The good thing is that the WebPage Test tool allows you to do custom settings for each test you take.
You can set your preferred testing location from a Map and select your browser from the Browser field. Like other website speed testing tools, it is also very easy to use. You need to add your website URL in the field and click on the Start test button.
4. Google PageSpeed Insights
Designed by Google, it is another popular website speed testing tool on the list. The tool lets you check your website speed for both desktop and mobile devices.
Unlike other tools, it doesn’t give you a lot of recommendations on how to fix website speed issues, its suggestions might matter more. After all, it is designed by Google, and if it is identifying issues with your site’s performance, you can’t neglect them.
Using PageSpeed Insights is quite easy. Type your website URL in and hit the Analyze button. You will see results for both mobile and desktop versions of your site in nice color-codes.
On top of the report, you can see your score that sums up your site performance. A score of 90 or above is considered fast while the score 50 to 90 is moderate. Anything below 50 is slow.
As mentioned above, you also get recommendations on how to improve your website speed score. Depending on your website’s performance, you might get the following suggestions:
- Eliminate render-blocking resources
- Minimize server response times
- Remove CSS
5. KeyCDN Website Speed Test
KeyCDN is another well-known website speed testing tool that you can give a try. It allows you to choose from 14 different geographical locations to measure your website’s loading speed. Its results include the status of your website’s loading time, content size, and the number of HTTP requests.
Now when you have a list of reliable and user-friendly website speed testing tools, don’t let slow website speed affect your reputation and revenue.
Test your website’s speed today and work on all the suggestions you receive to improve it. You can take the following steps to enhance your site’s speed in general.
- Reduce the number of CSS, JavaScript, and HTML
- Minimize unnecessary redirects
- Move your website to better host
- Optimize all the images on your website
- Eliminate all the possible errors
- Implement Gzip compression
- Consider enabling website caching
- Improve the structure of your site
We hope these suggestions will help you improve your site’s performance to some extent.
