A Guide To Increasing Your Google Page Speed Score

google page speed score

The online landscape is becoming competitive with each passing day. Today, users have hundreds of options for purchasing products online or finding answers to their queries. However, visitors will never wait if your website takes too long to load. 

Not just this, poor page speed can have a negative impact on your search engine rankings. That is why online business owners work hard to create fast-loading web pages. 

If you are also struggling to increase the loading speed of your site, you have landed at the right place. This article will share all details related to increasing your site’s speed. 

What is Google Page Speed Score and How to Measure It? 

Google Page Speed Score is a score in numbers between 0 and 100. Here, 0 is the minimum, and 100 is the maximum. According to the score, we can make amendments to our site to increase its speed. 

But which tool provides this scoring system? Thankfully, Google has given us a tool named Google Page Speed Insights (PSI) to measure the website score. Most importantly, the tool is free and provides recommendations. 

You just need to enter the website’s URL and click “Analyze” for the tool to start evaluating the page speed. Once it is done, the tool presents a report. Apart from the score, it also uses color-coding to provide the results. 

You will get one of these results:

Red: Poor

Yellow: Needs Improvement 

Green: Good

If your score is not up to the mark, do not worry. You can always make some changes to increase the page speed score. Wondering what these changes are? Read below to find out: 

Never Forget to Optimize Images 

Images have become a significant element in digital marketing. However, they can ruin your SEO efforts if not optimized correctly. Images take a lot of space and will likely slow down the site if not optimized. 

While you can get images from various sites, it’s also important to optimize them. You can do it with the following steps: 

Compress Images 

As the name suggests, image compression decreases the image’s file size. Thus, they take less space and load quickly. Multiple tools are available to assist you in compressing images. These include optimole, JPEG Optimizer, CompressorNow, Trimage, etc. 

All of these tools are intuitive and free to use. However, remember to maintain picture quality. Fast loading images will be of no use if they look blurry. For compressing images correctly, look to understand the types of compression.

Use an Image CDN 

You must have heard about CDN networks used for content delivery. Image CDNs work in the same way for images. They save images to a global server. In this way, loading images become fast no matter where the audience is. 

And you can save up to 40 – 80% of the space on your site. Image CDNs are divided into two broad categories, one is the self-managed system while the other is the third-party CDN. 

If your team can manage the image infrastructure, go for the first one. But, if you want to take it as a service, third-party CDNs are the right choice. 

Select a Right File Format 

The basic file formats include JPEG, PNG, and GIFs. Use JPEG if you want to reduce the file size and are ready to make a slight compromise in quality. Luckily, the quality compromise is hardly noticeable. 

Some businesses can never compromise on the quality of their main product’s image. A photography business is one example. In this case, PNG is the right choice. And when you are using animations, GIFs are an ideal option. 

Try to Reduce Server Response Time 

In simple terms, server response time is the time the server takes to fulfill a request to show a web page. If this time is too long, users are likely to bounce. You can use various methods to reduce the response time.

One option is to use a dedicated hosting service. Since you will be using it privately, the response time will be fast. However, it might not be cost-effective, and every business cannot afford it. 

Fortunately, shared hosting services are also available. Many small and medium-sized businesses are utilizing this option, which is better than a free hosting service. However, make sure to have a look at the reviews and feedback before selecting your hosting service provider. 

Apart from it, select a suitable theme if you are using WordPress. Some themes have a high loading time. The same is the case with plugins. Though using plugins is helpful, too many can slow down your site. 

Other ways of reducing the response time include pre-fetching, optimizing the database, avoiding web fonts, and eliminating 404 errors. 

Enable Browser Caching 

Browser Caching is the temporary storage of the website’s assets on your hard drive. The website owner decides which assets to save during browser caching. These are usually the assets that remain unchanged in several browsing activities. 

Since retaining the assets from the hard drive is easier, it speeds up browsing. Otherwise, retrieving files from a remote server is time-consuming. 

If you have no clue about this trick, which is a bit technical, ask a professional to do the job. 

Use Minification 

Minification is a process of compressing codes. Here you eliminate all the unnecessary characteristics from the code. Since the codes will become compact, reading them quickly is possible. Whitespaces, line breaks, and comments are a few elements that we can remove. 

Like browser caching, this trick is also technical. If you are using WordPress, you can use a plugin to help you out. Before selecting a  code compression plugin, check out the reviews and select the best one to do the job.

Final Words 

In short, increasing the Google page speed score is mandatory for providing an impeccable user experience. Besides this, it has a direct impact on your search engine ranking. 

Tips like image compression, minification, browser caching, and reducing the server response time help increase your score. 
Inability to provide a fast-loading website may result in losing many customers. Therefore, check your page speed score and plan a strategy to increase it. Good Luck!