Speed Up Your Site: A Simple Guide to PageSpeed Insights

What is PageSpeed Insights?

PageSpeed Insights (PSI) is a free tool from Google that helps website owners and developers understand how well their pages perform. Think of it as a doctor for your website, giving you a detailed check-up on its health!

You simply enter a URL, and PSI analyzes the content of the web page. It then gives you a score and provides suggestions on how to make the page load faster and improve the user experience on all devices (mobile and desktop).

Why Does Speed Matter?

In today’s digital world, people hate waiting. If your website is slow:

• Users are likely to leave before it even loads.
• It can hurt your website’s ranking on Google Search (SEO).
• A faster site generally leads to better conversions (more sales, sign-ups, etc.).

Key Metrics PSI Measures

PSI focuses on real-world user data and lab data, highlighting metrics called Core Web Vitals. These tell you exactly what users are experiencing:

1. LCP (Largest Contentful Paint): How fast the main content of your page loads. (A good target is under 2.5 seconds).
2. FID (First Input Delay): How responsive your page is when a user first interacts with it (e.g., clicking a button).
3. CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift): How stable your page is while loading. If elements jump around, it’s a bad score!