Do you want to make your website load within a second? For this, you need to how to improve speed index which helps in the fast performance of the website. A page load performance indicator called Speed Index (SI) measures how quickly a page’s contents are visible. In this article, we will make you familiar with what is speed index, How long it takes for your website to load on a visitor’s device, and How can you optimize a speed index by using simple tips.
What is the Speed Index?
Speed Index (SI) is a page load performance metric which shows that how quickly the information on your page is visible to the visitor. In other words, we can say that it is the average time at which the content of the page is displayed. The speed index is Expressed in seconds and it is dependent on the size of the viewport. The less the speed index score the better it is. This is just a website speed optimization.
How to measure Speed Index?
To measure the Speed Index score and performance you can use Google’s very own “PageSpeedInsights” (PSI) tool. It tells about the lab data, the aggregate of 28 days. It is a really well-put-together tool that you can use to analyze your performance and calculate your score.
The second option you can use is “GTmetrix” it is a snippet of JavaScript tool that allows you to analyze the performance of the current page and measure the speed in just a single click. In short, it’s the website speed test.
What is a good speed score?
According to Lighthouse, a good speed index score must be less than 4.3 seconds. And a speed index score above 5.8 seconds is considered bad.
And according to Google’s PageSpeedInsights, they have ranked the speed score in terms of colour ranking( red green, and orange)
- Green(Good Speed Score) : 0-3.4 seconds
- Orange (Moderate Speed Score): 3.4-5.8 seconds
- Red (Bad Speed Score): below 5.8 seconds
If you fall under the orange category then use GTmextrix for seeing what the real-time data shows, and getting a clear analysis.
How to Optimize Speed Index?
There are a number of ways by which you can optimize your Speed index, but we will focus on those ways which will definitely help you in improving the score and optimizing in a way that your user gets the best experience. Website speed optimization is very crucial.
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Reduce JavaScript execution time
This is considered one of the most effective ways. In this, you need to reduce the render-blocking resources, these are the resources that prevent the other important parts of your website from loading by taking priority. It increases the time of loading and decreases the speed index.
For solving this problem what you can do is, we can defer any number of scripts and parts of code that load until after the visible elements have been painted to the DOM.
You can also use the “Chrome Dev Tools” which will give show you a glance over your website when it loads and will also indicate the render-blocking elements
Users who use WordPress can take the help of caching plugins like WP rocket, this plugin can easily defer render-blocking resources.
Also Read,
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Reduce your Site’s Extra work:
If I put this in one line then, “Stop using too much Javascript”
There are many elements that take up a lot of processing power from your server. And if you reduce those then it will decrease the excess work of the server making it fast.
I know this might not sound easy for you because you have designed your website in a particular way, but what you can do is remove the unused code. Make sure to minify CSS and HTML with javascript, It will help you, even more, to unload the processing burden from the browser.
Wrapping it up:
We tried to explain about Speed Index in the most simple way. I hope you found this article helpful and that you are excited enough to measure your website speed and use the ways we have mentioned to optimize the website and increase the Speed index.
FAQs(Frequently Asked Questions)
Q. Why is website speed important?
Generally, website speed, or website performance, refers to a site’s ability to load fully functional web pages as quickly as possible. In contrast, sites that load quickly receive more traffic and tend to convert more effectively. Poorly performing sites that render slowly in a browser can drive users away.
Q. Why does indexing takes so long?
Depending on how many data files your hard drive contains, Windows’ first indexing can take up to two hours to complete. This processing certainly affects the computer’s performance during this time.
Q. How do I reduce the speed index in WordPress?
When using WP Rocket, the best caching plugin for WordPress, you can improve your Speed Index grade. In fact, anything that optimizes JS/CSS files and preloads fonts is likely to improve SI. Good news: each feature of WP Rocket is designed exclusively for performance.
Q. What is optimal site speed?
Websites should load within three to five seconds, or two to three seconds if they’re e-commerce sites. The two-to-three-second mark is when bounce rates spike – in fact, 40% of consumers wait no longer than three seconds before leaving a site.
