If you want to have a successful website, then it is important that your site load quickly. Google Pagespeed Insights is a tool that will tell you how well your site performs on desktop and mobile devices, what the problems are with your site, and how they can be fixed. Page speed is an important metric for SEO. What do you need to do in order to get over 90 on Google Pagespeed Insights?
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What is Google Page Speed Insights?
Google PageSpeed Insights reports the performance of a page on both mobile and desktop devices, and provides suggestions on how that page may be improved. The tool helps determine if the website is performing at top speeds.
A website that loads quickly provides viewers with a better experience. PageSpeed is an SEO metric with Google, so most businesses, web designers, and SEO strategist use this tool to determine how fast the website is performing.
Mobile and Desktop Scores
The tool has two scores: a desktop score, which is how the site performs on desktops and laptops; and a mobile score.
Note: You can enter your URL at this location: https://developers.google.com/. The first number that comes up is the mobile speed. Click on the small computer monitor icon and it will show you the desktop speed.
Keep in mind, this isn’t a school grade. It’s a number that Google spits out.
The higher the number, the better it is as this means that the site will load quickly.
The number that you want is a number higher than your competitor. If you competitor is a 15 on mobile and a 78 on desktop, that’s the number you want to beat.
However, nowadays I see most quality websites in the 90’s for the desktop. The mobile version varies as it is extremely difficult to be in the 90’s on mobile and still maintain beautiful design.
First, it is near impossible to get a 90 or above on the mobile version test. I tell my clients we aim for the middle on mobile. A score in the orange, which is 50-89. For desktop, we aim for the 90’s.
How do I get a 90 PageSpeed Score?
Good Hosting
For a site to load quickly, it needs to be on high-speed hosting. Good hostings will help with your PageSpeed score as well.
We typically recommend that our clients use WP Engine or FlyWheel for the best performance and security. (As a heads up, the link for both WP Engine and FlyWheel are affiliate links, so I earn a small commission if you decide to purchase. I would have personally recommended this resource either way as we have used both hosting providers).
Avoid low-cost hosting such as Bluehost, GoDaddy, and Hostgator that run their own server farms in third-world countries on shared-hosting platforms. They used to have decent hosting but we’ve seen them all deteriorate with slow outdated servers and substandard support the past year and no longer recommend them as a solution even with a small budget.
A Fast Theme
We also want you to make sure that the theme is not slowing down your site. We recommend that you use a fast theme with minimal scripts and CSS files, as this will also help to boost the PageSpeed score.
Optimized and Compressed Images
Images are huge in terms of bandwidth consumption on websites, so make sure they’re optimized for both size and quality.
This means that you need to export your images from Photoshop or another photo editing program at a high resolution (300dpi) and then compress them for web use.
There are many free online tools available that can do this, such as TinyPNG which will reduce the file size of an image by up to 70% without compromising on quality.
Cached Pages
Cached pages are another way to improve your PageSpeed score.
Caching is the process of storing a copy of static assets, like HTML scripts and images on the server-side so they can be delivered quickly without having to generate them dynamically from PHP code every time.
Both WPEngine and FlyWheel have their own caching software. If your host doesn’t have caching included, WP Super Cache is a great free solution to cached your website.
Optimized Database
The database on the backend of your website will also contribute to its PageSpeed score and performance.
WordPress uses a MySQL database to store pages, posts, and pieces of plugins on your website. It’s best to optimize the database tables, purging old drafts, at least once a month, depending upon website usage. A great tool for this is WP-Optimize.
CDN
A CDN is another way of improving your PageSpeed score, as they act as a buffer between visitors and servers by hosting various copies of your static assets across their global network for faster delivery.
Cloudflare is the most popular CDN and is automatically included as part of both WPEngine and FlyWheel hosting.
The Next Steps
In conclusion, there are a few ways to improve your PageSpeed score: good high-speed hosting (with caching and CDN included), fast theme that is lightweight, optimized images, and an optimized database.
Finally, it’s worth noting that if your site is already fast due to these considerations and you’re still struggling with a PageSpeed score below 90 in Google Pagespeed Insights, then there may be something wrong on the back end of your website and a support call to your host is in order.
Interested in having your website migrated to be hosted and maintained by us? Create IT Web Designs offers free site migrations as part of their hosting and maintenance packages. Find out more about our hosting.
