How to Check and Improve Your Website Speed

Website speed is both a ranking factor and a conversion factor. Google has used page speed as a ranking signal since 2010 and expanded this to mobile in 2018. Core Web Vitals - Google's standardised speed metrics - became a confirmed ranking factor in 2021. A slow website costs you rankings, visitors and revenue simultaneously.

How to measure website speed

1. Google PageSpeed Insights (pagespeed.web.dev) - free, shows both lab and field data, provides specific recommendations. 2. Google Search Console Core Web Vitals report - shows real-user data across your entire site. 3. GTmetrix - detailed waterfall analysis of what is slowing your page. 4. WebPageTest - advanced testing including multiple locations and connection types.

The three Core Web Vitals

LCP (Largest Contentful Paint): measures loading performance. Target: under 2.5 seconds. Most common cause of poor scores: large unoptimised images. INP (Interaction to Next Paint): measures interactivity. Target: under 200ms. Most common cause: heavy JavaScript execution. CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift): measures visual stability. Target: under 0.1. Most common cause: images without defined dimensions.

The fastest wins for speed improvement

1. Compress and convert images to WebP. 2. Install a caching plugin (WordPress) or enable CDN caching. 3. Add width and height to all images. 4. Defer non-critical JavaScript. 5. Upgrade to faster hosting.

Conclusion

Run a PageSpeed Insights test on your most important page today. Fix the top three recommendations. Repeat monthly. Speed improvement is never finished, but consistent incremental improvements compound into significantly better performance over time.