GTMetrix Tool: A Comprehensive Tool for Measuring Your Website Load Speed
GTMetrix tool helps users analyze their website’s speed performance in terms of Page Load Time, Total Page Size, and the Total number of requests. This tool is free to use and convenient; all you need to do is access the website, and add your website URL then click on ‘Test Your Site’.
GTMetrix tool also has a paid plan with advanced features like Hourly Monitoring of URLs, Monitoring from Remote Locations, Video Capture for alerts, etc.
Why is GTMetrix Important?
Page load speed is one of the most relevant search ranking factors. According to Google, more than 53% of users abandon a web page if it takes more than three seconds to load.
Page Load Speed is also connected to Google’s RankBrain. If you didn’t know, RankBrain is one of the most significant algorithms that Google references while ranking a site.
Rankbrain says there should be three things for a website to get a good ranking:
Significant Content: Measured in terms of the number of counts people click on the Google listing and how much time they spend on your website.
Low Bounce Rate: Bounce Rate means people are closing your website without taking any action.
Low Pogo Sticking: Pogo Sticking means people are opening your site, and going back to the Google Search Engine page to open another page because your answer was not good enough.
Now, if you have a slow page load speed and people close your site ‘tired of waiting’, it is going to be catastrophic in terms of all the above factors. You will have a minimum dwell time and high bounce rate and pogo-sticking all at once.
GTMetrix: Letting You Study Your Page Load Speed in Depths
The tool has set up seven servers across the world in Canada, the USA, UK, Australia, India, Brazil, and Hong Kong. It uses the nearest server to your location to provide you with the most accurate results.
On the other hand, to use graphs makes life easier. You can monitor pages, access speed performance history of your website of a specific time, annotate areas of interests in your chart, set alerts based on the page speed, page load time and total page size, etc.
What is the Difference Between Google Page Speed and YSlow?
Page Speed and Yslow both are different tools use to analyze and optimize the speed for a website. The GTMetrix Platform incorporates both of them.
In technical terms, YSlow is a client-based plugin. It runs in a user’s browser, while Google Page Speed runs in Google’s server.
All you need to do is that both of these tools use slightly different factors (most are still similar) to provide the website with a page speed score. With GTMetrix, you can avail of both of these testings to find a better way to improve your web page speed.
It would be best if you got a high score as much as possible; 90 is a great one.
What if my Page Speed Speed and YSlow Both are Fast, but the Website is Loading Slow?
Sometimes, the numbers on these tests could be high, but practically, your web page takes a lot of loading time.
If your website performance is not satisfactory despite high scores in the above departments, then it probably has something to do with the server.
For that, you can upgrade to a better hosting plan (VPS or dedicated server) and leverage browser caching. On the other hand, you can also try to minify HTML, CSS, and Javascript. If nothing works, it will be better for you to call for expert help.
Conclusion
A fast loading page is crucial for SEO, and GTMetrix tool helps you find every speed related issues on your website.
You can contact IT Solution Singapore if you have any confusions regarding this article, and also contact us if you are looking for the best SEO Singapore company.