Top Web speed testing tools!
If you’re new to websites and website performance you could be asking yourself, “what is website speed and why is it relevant?” In my opinion when researching website performance you must keep in mind your demographic, service delivery (mobile vs desktop) and what is most useful for your business. I love discussing this topic so feel free to reach out to Joseph@slyfoxdirective.com with further questions or even to arrange a FREE 30 minute consultation on everything online-business related.
When dealing with website speed basics cover Big Load Times, Render-blocking code and HTTP Requests. If you don’t know what these items are do now worry, here are the basics at a high level.
Big Load Times has to do with the server your website is based with. Measuring the time it takes to receive the first byte will reveal if your server is an issue. If it is then we recommend changing to a content delivery network (CDN)
Render-Blocking Code or code that specifically blocks the timeliness of the rendering, process image using color and siding to make it appear solid/three-dimensional, of your website content. If this is the case, for Javascript you can input the code block below into the <head> tag of your HTML which should be a snap-on fix. LogRocket has a great article for “9 tips and tricks” to assist with the render blocking. While this can help with the order or operations you should also think about trimming the fat from your CSS file.
HTTP Request are present every time a visitor travels to your website, and a series of requests are made to the server. To measure the requests you want to use a synthetic monitoring service.
BEST TOOLS
Google PageSpeed Insight - The most accessible tool for grading websites. Easy to use grading websites on a scale of 1 to 100 for mobile and desktop, 1 being slow and 100 being the fastest possible site. While limited in some options it is a free service and requires no registration.
Uptrends - ability to audit mobile device or desktop and choose resolution of your test screen from one of four browser options (Google Chrome, Firefox, PhantomJS and IE) to test different speeds. It doesn’t have full capabilities and comes up short when looking to set alerts for the free version but the cost of $12 a month does make it more on the affordable side.
DareBoost - Performing detailed analysis from several places for mobile and desktop. It is an easy to use dashboard, but offers a lot of information for overall performance and how to improve. Premium packages do start at $22 per month for only one screen and can range up to $356 per month for 15 monitors with only 30-minute monitoring durations. This includes 10 users with 12 months of data retention. While this is on the pricier side, it is a larger scale business specific technology.
CONCLUSION
It is easy to see that there are a number of services to choose from, and every single on is different in its own way making it strictly a users preference. As your website progresses, specially if you’re using third-parties, you should always strive to be ahead of your competition. When you use site speed monitoring you’ll be able to gain a small step up when targeting website performance, and deliver the be user experience to your market. For further questions please feel free to reach out to Joseph@slyfoxdirective.com for inquiries and even a FREE 30 minute consultation on all things web performance related.
