How quickly your page takes too load is super important, both for user experience and for your rankings. We know this for a fact as Google confirmed Page speed is a ranking factor.
So now we know page speed is important, before we can improve it we need to measure it.
There are a few great tools out there to do that and the best part is they are all free:
- Google Analytics
- Server Logs (rarely used)
- Web.dev
- WebPageTest
- GT Metrics
- Pingdom
I wouldn’t recommend using them all, while they do all tell you something slightly different it would be too much similar data.
Things like Web.dev are great for getting specific issues which you can easily fix, but it’s a snapshot so that’s something to consider.
On the other hand, Google Analytics is great for seeing trends and analysis but it doesn’t give causes.
Where GA can be great is that you might be able to spot that at specific times of the day you have speed issues – something some of the other tools might not be able to tell you.
The server logs are great for telling you how long it takes Google to download specific pages, but not how to fix it.
I am the Managing Director of Coreter Media and have been in Digital Marketing since 2009. Initially in-house working for some of the UK’s biggest brands, but now I run my own agency helping small businesses grow.
If you could use just one tool which one would it be?