Someone who opens a site on their phone goes back to the next result if the page does not load within a few seconds. For a local business that means a missed call or a customer who never comes. Google also takes page experience into account when ranking.
What is PageSpeed Insights?
PageSpeed Insights is Google’s free measuring tool. You enter your site’s address and within seconds it gives separate scores for mobile and desktop. The mobile test assumes a mid-range phone on a slow connection, so the mobile score is usually lower than desktop.
Four categories
Each category is scored from 0 to 100. 90 and above is green, which means good.
- Performance: How quickly the page loads and becomes usable.
- Accessibility: How well the site works for people with low vision, screen-reader users and people who prefer large text. For example, enough contrast between text and background, and descriptions for images.
- Best Practices: A secure connection (https), error-free code, up-to-date technology.
- SEO: The basic settings Google needs to understand the page, such as the page title, description and readability on phones.
Core Web Vitals: three measures
Below the performance score you see three more measures. Google calls them Core Web Vitals:
- LCP (Largest Contentful Paint): When the main image or heading appears on screen. 2.5 seconds or less is good.
- INP (Interaction to Next Paint): How quickly the page reacts when you tap a button. 200 milliseconds or less is good.
- CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift): How much the content jumps around while loading, such as text moving down as you read or tapping the wrong button. 0.1 or less is good.
If your site has enough visitors, PageSpeed also shows these measures as collected from real users. New sites with few visits show only the lab test.
Why does the score change every time?
It is normal to see a few points’ difference when you test the same page twice in a row. The server’s load at that moment, the network and the testing machine all affect the result. So look at the overall picture from several tests, not a single one.
What slows sites down most?
- Large photos: A 5 MB phone photo put on the site without resizing slows the page. Photos should be resized to their display size and converted to light formats such as WebP.
- Too many plugins and outside scripts: Live chat boxes, social media feeds, several tracking codes and ad codes all load separately on every page.
- Heavy ready-made themes: Do-everything themes also load the features you never use.
- Slow hosting: If the server is slow to give its first answer, the rest of the page is late too.
- Embedded videos: A video embedded directly in the page adds weight even if nobody plays it. Showing a small image first and loading the video on click is lighter.
Our approach
On every plan, every site we build scores 97 or above in each of the four categories on mobile and desktop in PageSpeed; if the score drops during the subscription, we fix it at no extra cost. You can see this site’s own scores on the home page and measure it yourself in PageSpeed Insights. The guarantee’s conditions are on the pricing page.
For the other things to check so your site shows up on Google, see our business website checklist.