How to Analyse your Website Speed

Aug

It is reported that roughly 50% of the population feel that three seconds is too long to wait for a website to load (source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37100091). With that in mind, it’s important to keep your website as fast as possible.

One of the key services we provide is analysing the speed and performance of our customers’ websites and making improvements to keep them fast enough.

To help with this process, one of the tools we use is called GT Metrix which analyses a website and generates a mini report. You can use this tool for free at gtmetrix.com – give it a try with your own website’s URL.

You’ll see that the report analyses your website using two different tools – Google’s ‘PageSpeed‘ and Yahoo’s ‘YSlow‘, which provide feedback on a number of aspects, with recommendations on how your website speed can be improved.

A lot of this information is very technical and might not mean very much to you, but the report also provides general information about the page itself.

Website Speed, Page Size and Requests

There are 3 important aspects to look for in the report:

Load Time – If this figure is above 3 seconds, you’ll want to consider improving your website speed.
Page Size – The larger the page, the slower it can be, especially on mobile devices. Think about reducing this.
Requests – The number of times the browser has to request new information (images, files of code or styling, etc…). The lower the number the better the page will be.

This is where Somerset Web Services can help. We are able to take all the technical mumbo-jumbo generated in the report and use it to make key improvements to your website speed.

For more information on this or any other service that we provide please contact us on 01823 353760, or email us using info@somersetwebservices.co.uk.