I was leaving work last Friday and I decided to spend some time in the Google Search Console focusing on my own company website. Not sure if you ever heard the age-old adage of the auto mechanic having the worst car on the road… but in the case of page speed my website was hurt! I literally clocked in at a 4! Yeah a 4!!!!
Want to know what your page speed is?
https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/
Website page speed is one of the most important factors of your website with regard to SEO and user bounce rate. There are a few areas that cause a website to slow down.
- Image sizes – Large images can take a long time to load.
- Cache – If your website is loaded with transient data or other old data that you are otherwise unaware of, then it can slow your site down.
- Hosting package – if you have a lower-level hosting package and a large website with a lot of images it can slow down the website with just one user on the site.
- Render Blocking JavaScript
- Not using a CDN – Content Delivery Network
- Un-Optimized CSS
- Your theme, if your theme is large or outdated it could be weighing you down.
- And other factors
If you are on WordPress, here are some (Free) plugins you want to get right now:
- Smush – this will give you the ability to compress your images and other content.
- Autoptimize – this will allow you to eliminate cache, render JS, and Optimize CSS.
- If you need help with your hosting, you can purchase it at 3DUB hosting and get the package that is best for you. Email me and I can help you figure out what package can be best. kevin@gallagherbd.com
Implement these 3 things and you will see a MUCH improved page speed. Just implementing these 3 plugins took me from a 4 to a 49! While there is some other work to do, this improvement is really high and I will add a follow up post when I get back to 90-100. Otherwise, if you need help with page speed or your website in general call GBD today!