How to Check Website Speed Performance

Google wants your site speed to be under 3 seconds.

Why?

Because that’s how long it takes for the average visitor to leave your website.

(If the webpage didn’t load within that time that is …)

How long did THIS blog post take to load for you?

Not sure …

That’s probably a good sign.

Means it was fast enough for you not to notice.

Google’s basically done the research and found that 3 seconds is the magic number.

Anything longer, and you’re at risk.

So let’s take a look at how to check website speed performance. (Using 3 reliable platforms).

1. PageSpeed Insights

PageSpeed Insights is what I use Weekly and sometimes daily to monitor my website speed.

Just pop in your URL and hit that “Analyze” button.

It will then give you a score out of 100.

How is the score calculated?

If you actually hover over the score, you’ll see a breakdown of the different factors.

Which is worth looking at.

What are they?

• TBT (Time to First Byte). How long does the browser have to wait before receiving the first byte of response from the server.
• LCP (Largest Contentful Paint). Time taken for the largest page element (image or text block) to become visible in the viewport.
• CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift). How many elements within the viewport move around during page load.
• FCP (First Contentful Paint). The time taken for the first piece of content to appear on the screen.
• SI (Speed Index). how quickly the contents of a page are visibly populated.

Which speed factor is the most important one?

TBT accounts for about 30% of the total.

In fact, Google did a great job of visually representing all the different factors that go into that final score.

You can read more about Lighthouse Performance Scoring.

Scroll down a little bit and you’ll see the metrics area where your actual score in seconds is recorded.

But the real hidden gem is in that DIAGNOSTICS section, where it breaks down exactly what’s holding your site back from hitting that perfect 100.

That’s where you can really dive in and start addressing each point.

For example, ☝️ as you can see … I need to remove some Unused JS …

What are the most common issues?

• Remove Unused CSS. Use tools like Perfmatters.
• Serve images in next-gen formats. Convert images to WebP.
• Avoid Excessive DOM size. Look into your page builder and your nested containers.
• Eliminate Render-Blocking Resources. You can defer non-critical JavaScript and CSS by using async and defer attributes in your script tags.

2. GTmetrix

GTmetrix used to be free.

I mean it still kinda is (but only for up to two tests per account).

Still, it’s pretty handy.

It gives you the score in two major categories: Performance and Structure.

And from what I’ve experienced, it tends to be a bit more aggressive in its assessment.

What’s the difference from PageSpeed Insights?

GTmertix tests your site from one of the 22 global locations.

It also doesn’t apply any throttling so naturally it may have a more accurate representation of LCP.

 If you’ve got a well-optimized site like mine …

Your GTmetrix report might look something like this 👇

Below that you’ll find all the assets being loaded on your page … And how much of the total page size each one takes up.

Cool!

3. Pingdom

Pingdom takes a different approach.

It’s simple and easy to understand.

The main reports/flags are:

• Single Point Score from A – E (and 0-100)
• Page size and Load Time
• Number of requests

Here take a look at mine:

I’ve been using it, and it’s kind of similar to PageSpeed Insights in the way it lists the pain points

But grades them from A – E like this:

I love the list of requests by content type as well.

looks something like this:

But there’s one thing I’ve noticed with Pingdom.

It might flag some issues that are already resolved with more modern alternatives.

For example, it told me to “compress components with gzip,” but I already have both gzip and Brotli enabled on my server.

Seems like Pingdom doesn’t detect Brotli yet.

What’s Brotli?

And how can I check wether I have it on?

The newer alternative to Gzip is Brotli.

Brotli is an open-source compression algorithm developed by Google.

So, to check whether you really have either gzip or Brotli you can use this gip tester by GiftofSpeed.

If you don’t have either gzip or Brotli, you need to talk to your hosting company.

Handy dandy.

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