The internet has grown astonishingly, and with that is the technology that supports it. For that reason, many web designers would never have thought that the speed a certain website page loads into a browser would be that important. One reason for this is broadband; the incredible speeds and data that can be shifted against the old 256kb telephone dial-up connections must be seen to be believed. So in the earlier days of website creation, bigger images, movies, JavaScript and every type of media possible were often added with the opinion that internet speeds could handle it all.
But move ahead a decade or so, and we see something quite different. Websites are more likely to be sleek and simpler, and high data media will likely be separated into a standalone server, streaming provider or a dedicated website area.
WE LIVE IN A MOBILE WORLD
The popularity of mobile devices has played a part in this. Yes, broadband speeds can be attained on some networks. However, the majority of smartphones and tablets still do not have the internal memory and loading ability of a desktop computer or laptop. So some thought has to be put into how fast your website is loading and does it offers a good experience to the user.
THE EASY USE SOLUTION IN WEBMASTER TOOLS
“PageSpeed Insights” Is an extremely useful SEO tool that shows the speed of your Web Pages both in the desktop and mobile modes, offering advice and solutions to improve speeds should the results not be fast enough.
It is available through webmaster tools (or search control as it is now called) listed under “other resources”.It is pretty easy to use, enter the full URL of the page you want to be tested, and it will scan and deliver results for both desktop and mobile. The objective is to get at least a green box with a white tick, with the ideal score being 100% for both.
It will also give a score for the mobile “user experience.”
REMEMBER, WHERE YOU RANK MAY DEPEND ON THE LOAD SPEED
Those who follow search engine optimisation will know that the speed your website loads can affect your ranking in Google’s index. This doesn’t necessarily mean the faster your site, the higher your rankings, but it does mean you will lose rankings if it is too slow. Google’s mobile algorithm insists on a user-friendly site for mobile users, or visibility will be dropped in mobile searches.
EASY TO USE, BUT THE SOLUTIONS MAY NOT BE
There is a downside of “PageSpeed Insights’ if you are not a developer, in that some of the suggestions to improve performance may be beyond the amateur designer. Understanding to use “Gzip”, “Leverage Browsing”, “Render Blocking” or “Minify JavaScript” may be beyond the beginner or art student, whose talent lies on the creative side rather than the technical.
There are “How To Fix” links with every suggestion, and depending on how technical the user is will depend on how useful this is, I have always found better explanations to solutions elsewhere by searching on Google. Very often, readymade examples are there, for example, what code to enter into the .htaccess file to aid leverage browsing for Linux servers.
But at least the solutions are there; it is then up to the webmaster to implement themselves or employ someone to do it for them.
There are other tools to analyse page load speeds but “PageSpeed Insights” is the most popular as it is a Google tool and is more likely to be developed in line with their own standards.
