How to Run a Website Speed Test? Google Metrics

Website speed testis a technical performance analysis that measures how long it takes for a web page to load in the user's browser and become ready for interaction. In today's internet world, users want to access the information or product they are looking for within seconds. Slow-loading pages both drive away visitors and reduce your value in the eyes of search engines. Performing this technical analysis regularly allows you to detect performance losses of your site early.

Why is Website Speed ​​Testing Important?

Performing a website speed test plays a direct determining role in the user experience, conversion rates and Google ranking of your digital property in search results. Fast-loading pages keep users on your site longer and reduce the bounce rate. For example, let's take an e-commerce site with 10,000 monthly visitors. While the bounce rate on this site, with a page loading time of 5 seconds, is 65%, when this time is reduced to 1.8 seconds with technical improvements, the bounce rate drops to 28%. This means getting more than twice as many orders and cart conversions for the same budget.

In order to analyze your technical infrastructure correctly before the speed test, you need to make the following preparations:

• Enable your site's cache plugins and server-side caching mechanisms.
• Close any other browser tabs running in the background and consuming data during testing.
• Repeat the test with both wired internet connection and cellular data to get accurate results.
• Check that third-party codes (analytics tools, live support windows) used on your site are up-to-date.

Google What are Site Speed ​​Metrics (Core Web Vitals)?

Google site speed metrics consist of Core Web Vitals metrics that measure the actual speed and visual stability that users experience when interacting with a web page. Google uses these values ​​directly as signals in the sorting algorithm. Correctly interpreting these metrics is the first step in the technical optimization process. To see the current status of your site, you can check the free information on our site. Page Speed & Core Web Vitals You can use the tool. By typing your website address into this tool, you can view your mobile and desktop speed scores, critical loading times and improvement suggestions in a detailed report within seconds.

How to Perform a Website Speed ​​Test Step by Step?

To test website speed, you need to start by opening the incognito tab of your browser and use unbiased analysis tools. Browser cache and active user sessions can confound test results. For this reason, it is best to clear the browser history or use an incognito window before each test.

Step 1: Incognito Tab and Choosing the Right Tool

Open an incognito window from your browser and copy the page address you want to analyze. Start the analysis by pasting this address into the search bar of global testing tools such as Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix.

Step 2: Separating Mobile and Desktop Data

When the test results screen loads, you will see two different tabs: mobile and desktop. Since mobile devices have lower processor power and connection speeds, you should first focus on the mobile score and fix the errors there.

Step 3: Examine Server Response Time

Check the time to first byte (TTFB) value. If this value is above 600 milliseconds, it means that an improvement needs to be made on the server side before code optimization.

How Should Code Be Structured to Improve Speed ​​Test Results?

To improve speed test results, you need to define browser caching rules in your website's source codes and arrange the loading priorities of images. A correct code configuration reduces the load on your server, allowing pages to be opened in milliseconds.

<img src="gorsel.jpg" loading="lazy" alt="Ornek urun" width="800" height="600">

The loading lazy attribute in the HTML line above ensures that the image is loaded only when the user approaches the screen. Specifying width and height values ​​prevents scrolling while loading the page and improves the CLS score.

<IfModule mod_expires.c>     ExpiresActive On     ExpiresByType image/webp "access plus 1 year"     ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 1 month" </IfModule>

This htaccess code block instructs the server to cache certain file types in the visitor's browser. The first line activates the caching module, the second line stores webp format images in the browser for a year, and the third line keeps the css files in local memory for a month, allowing the site to be opened instantly on repeated visits. If your infrastructure is WordPress, instead of dealing with codes, get a professional WordPress speed optimisation By getting this service, you can leave all these technical processes to expert hands.

Common Mistakes in Website Speed ​​Testing

The most common mistakes made when testing website speed cause you to interpret incorrect data and take incorrect optimization steps. You can measure your site's true performance by avoiding these mistakes:

• Focusing Only on Desktop Score: The majority of internet traffic comes from mobile devices. Just because your desktop score is 95% doesn't mean your site is fast; You should always reference the mobile score.
• Ignoring Server Response Time (TTFB): No matter how optimized the page codes are, if the server responds slowly, the site will open slowly. To overcome this problem, a quality server optimisation work is required.
• Performing Tests from a Single Geographic Location: While your site's target audience is in Turkey, performing the test on a server in America will give misleading results as it will increase the ping time.
• Performing Repeated Testing Without Clearing the Cache: You should clear both the site cache and the testing tool cache before each test to see the effect of a change you make to the site.

Checklist for Speed ​​Optimization

It is recommended that you follow the technical steps below in order to ensure a permanent performance increase on your site after the speed test. This checklist will help you get into the green zone on Core Web Vitals criteria:

• Convert and compress all images to WebP or AVIF format.
• Reduce the size of CSS, JavaScript and HTML files by removing unnecessary spaces and comment lines.
• Identify and remove unused CSS and JavaScript codes from relevant pages.
• Load fonts from your local server and use the font-display swap feature.
• Clean up database tables regularly and delete old revisions.
• Use a reliable content delivery network (CDN) so page resources reach the browser faster.

A Practical Scenario to Improve Speed ​​Test Results

Here is a concrete optimization scenario that an e-commerce site that performs a speed test and gets low scores can follow to improve its performance:

• Visual Sizing: The 2 MB banner image on the home page is converted to WebP format and reduced to 120 KB.
• Delayed Loading: By adding the loading lazy attribute to the product images at the bottom of the page, the number of server requests at the first load is reduced from 45 to 12.
• Font Optimization: Fonts retrieved from Google Fonts are moved to the local server and the font-display swap rule is added to the CSS file, ensuring that the texts appear instantly.
• Code Compression: The site's main CSS file is compressed, reducing the file size from 180 KB to 35 KB.

Increasing your website's loading speed is the most effective way to rank higher in search engines and increase conversion rates. You can provide your users with a perfect experience thanks to regular analysis with the right tools and technical code improvements. To get professional support and maximize your site's performance WordPress speed optimisation You can review our solutions.