8-Point On-Page SEO Plan, Step 4: Speed Check
By now you should be familiar with the 8-point On-Page SEO Plan – a proven, straightforward method to improve websites for beginners. Developed by John Kriney, this optimization road map touches on technical SEO, content creation, and other techniques that will push websites up a few Google rankings.
Step 4 of the 8-Point On-Page SEO Plan is the website speed test. Once the site code is correctly indexed, the server has to be checked for bandwidth, resources, and processing power. If the server being used doesn’t have the horsepower to perform alongside the optimized site, then the site will still be slow and visitors will feel it.
Thankfully, there are few more free tools available that are capable of providing your need for speed.
Pingdom, a comprehensive monitoring platform that ensures site interactions function smoothly and examines how actual visitors experience a site, is highly recommended. This will tell you if you need to upgrade or change servers to keep things on par.
Once your server situation is sorted, run Google’s page speed insights test on your website and optimize the code for speed as well. Other metrics besides standard load times – like Cumulative Layout Shifts (CLS) and Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) – are now also being considered by Google because of their direct correlation on “good” user experience.
CLS scans unexpected shifts in page elements like fonts or videos and LCP measures how long it takes for content on a page to prepare for interaction, both key elements when it comes to site speed.
