Site Speed Tools Update: Tools From Google and Others

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Google has a new web page speed tool for both desktop and mobile devices. So we’ve updated our article about why web page load times are so important along with various site/page speed tools.

 

Why Site/Page Load Speed Is Important 

  • Slow Load Speeds Can Reduce Leads And Sales. It’s an important user experience factor. When a site responds slowly, visitors spend less time there. 
  • Load speed is especially important for the pages people first land on from search results. If it takes too long to load many people will simply hit the back button and click on another search result. 
  • In Google’s Search Advertising PPC Network (AdWords) poor load speed is a one the factors that can lower your Quality Score leading to lower ad positions at a higher cost-per-click (CPC). Google will even stop ads from running if the load speed is too slow. 
  • In short slow load speeds can hurt conversions such as the number of leads or sales your web site generates as well as reduce the amount of visitors from search engines. 

 

Google Speed Tools

Google’s Page Speed Tool for Desktop and Mobile. Enter a page a URL and get improvement suggestions for both Desktop and mobile devices.

You can also get to this tool from Google’s Webmaster Tools from the Other Resources Section.

Google's Page Speed Tool for Desktop and Mobile
Google’s Page Speed Tool for Desktop and Mobile CLICK to Enlarge

 

Google Analytics – Site Speed currently in The Behavior section (see screen shot). Shows timing by page with suggestions.

Google Analytics – Site Speed
Google Analytics – Site Speed – CLICK to Enlarge 

 

Other Tools

In this article (mentioned above) Google lists some speed tools from others

There are other tools out there. Since the URL’s to these tools tend to change try a search on “web page speed tools” .

 

Related Info

5 Reasons Visitors Leave Your Website an article on websitemagazine.com that includes a look at the affect of load speeds on bounce rates such as “…40 percent of visitors will leave the website if the loading process takes more than 3 seconds”

An infograhic on websitemagazine.com showing the impact of site speed.