Website performance test for small businesses

Back Posted on 15 Jun 2016

Is your website fast and mobile friendly? Google's new test tool helps you be your best online by scoring your site on mobile friendliness, mobile speed and desktop speed. It also provides a list of fixes to help you make improvements.

Earlier this month Google announced their new page speed and mobile friendly test tool.

It is aimed at small businesses and offers an easy way to test the performance of your website.

Ratings are given according to mobile friendliness, mobile speed and desktop speed.

Mobile friendliness and page speed test results

Be mobile friendly

Mobile friendliness is important because more searches occur on mobile phones than computers^[1].

Nine out of ten people will leave a mobile website if they can’t find what they’re looking for within a few seconds^[2].

Plus Google take mobile friendliness into account for search results given to mobile users - if your site is not mobile friendly you are less likely to rank well.

Speed is important

Site speed is another important factor for your website.

Surveys show 50% of web users expect your website to load in under 2 seconds, more than 3 chances are they will abandon it.

And Google considers speed when ranking your site - if your site is slow you are less likely to rank well.

Real people count

It's easy to get carried away trying to do what Google wants. But your website isn't for Google, it's for real people - your customers.

Google knows this and wants to link to websites that perform well on any device.

So if your website is written to be the best it can be for people Google will love it too.

Numbers aren't everything

Mobile friendliness 99 percent

Scoring 99% for Mobile Friendliness must mean your website can't get any better, right?

It is possible to score 99% for Mobile Friendliness with a page that weighs in at 4.5mb and takes 15sec to load - this is not mobile or desktop friendly!

So the numbers don't tell the whole story. This is where an experienced web developer can really make a difference to your website.

Over to you

Test your site to find out how well you score.

The results will show what can be improved and how to fix any issues highlighted.

If you need help to interpret the results or advice on how to implement the fixes suggested I'd love to help.