According to Google, most websites lose no less than half of their visitors as the page is loading. 46% of web users say waiting for a slow loading page to appear on screen is the most frustrating part of accessing the web via a mobile device.
Google has already made it known that page load speed is a mobile ranking factor. With this in mind, and with the new mobile index well under way in development at Google HQ, the search engine has revealed new features for mobile site testing in its Test My Site tool, enabling users to measure and improve their mobile site speeds, see how many visitors have potentially been lost through slow loading, and see how they do against competitors.
The new features have been added to the existing Test My Site functionality and rolled out within the last week.
These new features, as outlined in a Google blog post, are:
1. Your site’s mobile speed
Find out how quickly your site is loading. Google’s research recently showed what difference a few seconds can make on bounce rate. This will give you a good indication of where on the scale you stand and how much improvement needs to be made in order to keep your hard earned traffic on site.
2. How many visitors you might be losing
This new feature will tell you exactly how many visitors you may have lost in the time it took for your page to show up on screen.
3. How you compare to the competition
Competitor benchmarking is useful across a range of marketing efforts and mobile is no different. This Test My Site addition will tell you how your site stacks up against your competitors..
4. How to make your site faster
Google will send you a personalized email report with specific recommendations to improve your page load speed. The assessment should provide lots of actionable advice.
Quick wins
There are a number of actions you can take to improve your mobile page speed for quick wins. For example:
- Minimize image sizes for mobile pages using image compression
- Implement AMP
- Reduce the number of redirects used
- Use a content delivery network
- Remove unnecessary video content
You can find more information about these actions and how they will benefit your page load speed in our full how to improve your mobile page speeds article.
Wordtracker guest blogger, John Stevens has a further six actionable tips to increase your page load speeds here. His suggestions include:
- Optimize images
- Enable caching
- Minimize JaveScript and CSS
- Choose better hosting
If you haven’t yet used the Test My Site tool, the new additions make it a perfect time to turn your attention to mobile page load speed. Go to Test My Site to see how your site measures up.
