The Need for Speed
Have you checked Google's PageSpeed Insights lately?
I hadn't. I was shocked to see that my only two-week old, but admittedly picture-heavy, website ranked a sad 72%. Since we know that speed is king, both for our users and the all-mighty Google algorithm, this needed a solution. And fast!
After an adjustment of plug-ins (I switched from the free Kraken to a paid ShortPixel), my new site speed is an impressive 98!
I'm pretty thrilled with this switch so far. And you can bet I'll be keeping a much closer eye on my speeds!
Do you have any other site speed tips or tricks? Is anyone using AMPs? Cacheing? WebP files?
Recent Comments
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Hey Katie,
The home page speed isn't so important. It's your posts that need to load in under 3 seconds on mobile to rank well, and I just tested one of your posts and you only score 26 on mobile - with a 13 second load time on page insights.
I wouldn't worry too much about -page insights results these are just recommendations and guesstimates on actual speed.
To check what speed your posts are loading go to WepageTest they are probably one of the more accurate sites for page speed.
Google bots don't care what score or grade you achieve on any of the tests such as GTmetrix, Pingdom or page insights all the google speed bots care about is the loading time.
Cheers
Jake
Ps, I notice you are using videos in your posts, you need to lazy load the iframes this will really speed your load times on posts with videos.
WP Rocket lazy load is a free plugin its the best one for lazy loading iframes and it's extremely lightweight.
Test one of your posts with a video on gtmetrix before activating the WP Rocket Lazy Load and then test the same post when activated you will be surprised what a difference in load time you will see..
Thank you, Jake! I didn't even know what I didn't know!
So much to learn for this young Padawan. :)
I will be going through your tips with a fine-tooth comb and making changes. I really appreciate you taking the time to share this info!
Katie
Lazy Load helped a ton! Load time went from 6+ seconds to a little over 3. But still plenty of work to do!
My worst score on WebPageTest is "effective use of CDN".
Any chance you're aware of a plug-in for that, too?
Hey Katie,
Glad it helped :)
Yeah, using a CDN can speed things up, well it did for my site, but you can't benefit from a CDN like Cloudflare if your website is hosted at WA which I'm guessing yours is.
Yes, that's what I've learned too. But according to Site Support, my speeds are all good now. I will keep a close eye.
Thank you again for such valuable help. :)
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Great post!
You've piqued my curiosity!
I want to look at your site!
Michael Inman