How to Check Your Website’s Load Speed
One of the most important metrics for assessing a website’s performance is its load speed. It is also crucial to remember that search engines take this factor into account when analyzing rankings. Therefore, checking your website’s load speed is essential, but you’ll only succeed if you are familiar with all the nuances. Today, we will explore how you can check your web resource’s load speed and what tools you can use to do so.
The Role of Website Load Speed
Website load speed directly affects user interactions, as people today want to access desired information as quickly as possible. Experience shows that if a site doesn’t open within three seconds, the user stops loading it and doesn’t return to that resource. Therefore, load speed affects the following metrics:
- Traffic: Users get tired of waiting and turn to your competitors;
- SEO: The slower the load speed, the worse your search engine rankings;
- Conversion: The two aforementioned factors together influence sales numbers.
You should regularly check your website’s load speed to identify any issues, optimize your page, and avoid slow loads and user churn. Let’s look at the most popular tools to help you solve this problem.
Popular Tools for Checking Website Load Speed
Specialized services exist to help you study your page’s load speed. They all vary in terms of their functionality, with some offering only basic features, while others provide a full set. By studying them in detail, you can choose the most suitable for you.
GTmetrix
GTmetrix allows you to measure your web resource’s performance. Here, you can monitor the total load time, largest contentful paint, and more.
One of the benefits of GTmetrix is that it provides information about the main errors affecting performance. The free tools suffice for a comprehensive analysis, but the service also includes premium features for a more detailed understanding of your site’s functionality.
Pingdom
This service offers a number of free, essential features. It assesses your site’s performance and provides information on the page load time.
A key feature of Pingdom is that you receive practical recommendations for improving your web resource’s performance following the test. With premium access, you’ll also benefit from uptime monitoring, visitor data, and other valuable features.
WebPageTest
WebPageTest offers repeat testing and visual comparison testing. With these free tools, you can analyze your site’s performance from different browsers and devices. After that, you will receive all the necessary information with results on site speed optimization, diagrams, and improvement recommendations.
Google PageSpeed Insights
This service is designed to analyze site performance on mobile and desktop devices. The check results provide information with an analysis score. The first part includes user experience data they gain while interacting with your resource. The second part contains information on how performance can be improved and issues solved.
Side Speed
Side Speed is a service from Google Analytics. It allows you to evaluate your site’s load speed and perform syntax analysis.
To use this service, you need to connect your site to Google Analytics. Following the check, you’ll receive information on each page separately, along with advice for improving performance metrics.
KeyCDN
KeyCDN allows you to analyze your site’s performance from ten different locations. The results display reports on three metrics:
- Number of requests;
- Load time;
- Total page size.
In a full report, the service will provide diagrams, as well as security and network analysis.
Dotcom-Monitor
Dotcom-Monitor gives you the opportunity to audit with 21 servers. You can choose any of the five offered browsers, and the free version can analyze up to five locations simultaneously. If you aren’t registered, the number of places is reduced to three.
Test My Site
This service is among the most important for working with mobile versions of web resources. You can freely analyze your site’s working speed, obtain comparative characteristics against competitors, and get recommendations to improve the web page’s performance.
Dareboost
It allows you to assess site performance from 13 different locations and seven devices, including mobile. Dareboost can simulate testing with ad blocking, as well as without it. After the analysis, the service will provide recommendations structured in such a way that you can immediately determine priority directions for error correction.
Conclusion on Website Load Speed Check
A site’s load speed and performance are some of the most crucial metrics impacting behavioral factors, traffic, and conversion. Website performance audits should be conducted regularly, fixing errors promptly. Use one of the services mentioned above for an effective assessment of your site’s performance.
Your site’s load speed should not exceed 3 seconds, with the optimal being 0.5 seconds. Remember, low performance significantly lowers your search rankings, and consequently, reduces traffic.
