Deciphering: What is Google PageSpeed Insights?

Through our SEO Agency Optimize 360

Google PageSpeed Insights is a free tool proposed by Google, which allows you to analyse and measure the loading speed of your web pages.

More than just a score, this tool helps you identify areas for improvement to make browsing faster and easier. user experience. In this article, we'll break this tool down into 10 key points.

1. Why optimise the loading speed of a web page?

The speed at which a web page loads is a determining factor in the success of a website. This is because, the faster a page loads, the better it will be perceived by users. What's more, studies show that an increase in page load time can lead to a significant drop in conversion rateuser engagement and natural search engine optimisation.

2. What exactly does Google PageSpeed Insights measure?

This tool assesses the overall performance of a web page, taking into account a number of criteria, such as :

Server response time
Compressing images and CSS/JS files
Progressive display of content ("Lazy Loading")
The number of HTTP requests made by the page

3. How does web page analysis work?

After entering the URL of a web page, Google PageSpeed Insights performs a series of tests and analyses to deduce an overall score. This score ranges from 0 to 100, with :

A score above 90: the page is considered to be performing well;
A score between 50 and 89: improvements are needed;
A score of less than 50: the page has major performance problems.

In addition to this score, the tool also provides advice and recommendations for improvement.

4. Analysis of the report generated by Google PageSpeed Insights

Lab Data

Laboratory data are the results of tests carried out in a controlled environment with precise network and device conditions. This allows for consistent and repeatable benchmarking by comparing multiple pages or versions of the same page. This data includes the following measurements:

- First Contentful Paint (FCP)
- Speed Index
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
- Time to Interactive (TTI)
- Total Blocking Time (TBT)
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

Field Data

Field data represents actual measurements collected from end-users with a wide range of network and device conditions. This data is based on real samples, providing a more accurate analysis of the actual user experience. Key field-side indicators include LCP, FID (First Input Delay) and CLS.

5. Taking mobile into account: an imperative

Google PageSpeed Insights offers a separate analysis for the mobile and desktop versions of your web pages. It is now essential to optimise the performance of your site on mobile devices, as Google uses the " Mobile First Indexing" This means that indexing and ranking in search results are based primarily on the mobile version of your site.

6. Should you aim for a score of 100/100?

Achieving a perfect score of 100 is neither necessary nor realistic for all websites. The objective should be toimprove overall performance while preserving the quality of the content and functionalities offered to users. A pragmatic approach consists of implementing the priority recommendations and adjusting the secondary elements according to their relevance to your business.

7. How can I improve my Google PageSpeed Insights score?

Here are a few best practices for optimising the loading speed of your pages:

Reduce server response timein particular by optimising the server configuration or by choosing a accommodation with sufficient resources.
Optimising imagesby compressing them, using modern formats such as WebP and adapting their size to different screen resolutions. Also check that you are not uploading any unused images.
Minifying and concatenating files CSS and JavaScriptto reduce their size and limit the number of HTTP requests required to load a page.
Use an effective caching system to speed up the display of data already consulted.
Adopt a mobile-first approach to the design and development of your website, giving priority to responsive layouts.

8. The limits of Google PageSpeed Insights

This tool is an excellent basis for analysing and improving the performance of your web pages, but it should be supplemented with other analyses:

Other measurement tools, such as GTMetrix or WebPageTest, can provide additional information;
The integration of a real-time performance monitoring tool means that problems can be detected quickly and technical method parameters can be continually adjusted as your site evolves.

9. Why do the other tools give different results?

Other speed testing tools have different evaluation criteria and methodologies, which may lead to different results. To get an overall view of your pages' performance, we recommend that you combine several tools and analyse the advice offered to identify the optimisations that are relevant to your context.

10. Don't forget the importance of the user experience (UX)

Finally, it is important to bear in mind that technical optimisation must not be at the expense of the user experience.

A page that is ultra-fast but not very ergonomic or that does not meet the expectations of the target audience will be less interesting than a page that is slightly slower but more effective.

Using Google PageSpeed Insights is therefore a valuable resource for understanding a website's performance and identifying opportunities for improvement.

However, this tool must be used judiciously and in conjunction with other analyses to provide an exhaustive overview of the situation and make the best possible decisions.