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How To Use GTMetrix To Improve Page Load Time Your Website?

    Are you interested in increasing the speed of website? Are you looking for ways to increase the speed of your website using GTmetrix? Don’t delay! Take a look at the article below to improve your website’s performance.

    After you have built a website, it’s time to optimize its performance. It is important to understand where you are at the moment. GTmetrix speed tests can help you determine where you are at any given moment.

    GTmetrix lets you enter your website’s URL. The GTmetrix then returns your site’s performance metrics along with scores and recommendations.

    Four Important Speed Test Considerations

    GTmetrix, among many other tools, is great but not very useful if it’s just a one-off speed test. You’ll need multiple tests and to get exact results you must experiment with other factors.

    1)NUMBER OF TESTS

    A lot of speed testing is necessary to obtain a comprehensive data set. Ideal would be to schedule an hourly speed test and let it run for at least a week.

    This is because your website will experience a change in performance depending on the number of visitors to your site or how much you use your server box if your site is on a shared host.

    2) TEST LOCATIONS

    Your test results will be affected by the proximity of your site to the test area (or to real people visiting your site). This is due to physics (we haven’t yet figured out how we can change the speed light).

    This is why the test site location matters so much.

    You should choose a test location as close as possible your target visitors. This should also include the physical location of your host server.

    If you are only targeting one area, then all that matters is the test results.

    3) TEST TARGETS

    Many people test only their homepage. This is a major mistake that can lead to a lot of skewing. First, your homepage might be the page that is the most data-intensive on your website, so it may be the fastest.

    You may not think your homepage is as important as it seems. My experience with a site that received 97% of its organic traffic through search engines was amazing. Most of the traffic went to single posts or pages. Be sure to look beyond your homepage.

    4) TEST DEVICES/CONNECTION SPAEEDS

    The majority of people who test the speed and usability of websites only focus on the desktop experience.

    This is a mistake. Mobile traffic accounts for over half of all internet users.

    Mobile devices can have a significantly slower site speed than desktop devices. JavaScript will take longer on mobile devices than it does on desktop computers, and especially those that are less powerful. Your mobile load times can be much slower than those on your desktop if your site is heavy in JavaScript.

    How to Use Advanced Analysis Options

    This gives you an example of your site’s current metrics. But, if your goal is to improve your site, GTmetrix offers advanced analysis tools that can help you dig deeper into your site. These metrics are broken down into six tabs located below the summary.

    PageSpeed — This is a way to rate your site against the 23 recommendations of Google PageSpeed.

    YSlow — Your site is marked against the 19 recommendations by YSlow.

    Waterfall — This tool allows you to check how each HTTP request loads onto your site.

    Timings — Free account required; allows you to see different timing metrics for load times (we’ll go into more detail below).

    Video — This requires a free account. You can film a video about how your site loads.

    History — Tracks the performance of your site over time.

    How to run the GTmetrix speed test

    You can easily run a GTmetrix site test by simply going to the GTmetrix homepage. After you have entered your URL, click Test your site.

    GTmetrix anonyme test

    However, it is a good idea to register for a GTmetrix account free of charge before running a test.

    Your speed test with the public version will always use this configuration:

    Vancouver, Canada: Test

    Chrome browser on desktop

    Untorched connection

    You can also modify any conditions by registering for a free Account.

    You could, for example, change the testing site to Dallas, Texas if most visitors are from the Southwest USA. This will give you a better idea about the performance for your target audience.

    This is the place where you can change test locations and also have the option of using a mobile test device. You can also adjust the connection speed (e.g. simulating a slower 3G connection with a faster wired connection).

    After you create your account, you can expand the Analysis Options to learn more about how your test functions.

    Advanced test configuration options

    Once GTmetrix passes its test according to your requirements, it will give you a results page.

    An overview at the top with your performance scores as well as basic page details

    Details of the results are divided into six tabs

    What is GTmetrix?

    GTmetrix, a program that measures page speed and page performance, is available. GTmetrix generates scores but also reports Page speed and Wi Slow. It is possible to get detailed reports about the performance of your website for no cost. It assigns each page a score and suggests ways to improve them. The WordPress dashboard allows us to create reliable analytics reports.

    It is possible to place reports for daily or weekly delivery. The site receives a broad awake as soon as the WordPress administrator posts a status update. Fill out the form to create your GTmetrix free account. Your free profile is limited to a maximum of one request per day.

    GTmetrix is the only website where you can access the web-based version. Firefox, Chrome Safari, Safari, Internet Explorer and Internet Explorer users that don’t want to use the plugin can have GTmetrix bookmarks added directly to their web browsers.

    GTmetrix features:

    Content Delivery Network consists of many computers that are located in different cloud service providers to create the database. This not only improves page loading times but also reduces bounce rates. Reduce the time it takes to load a page. This will improve your performance. This will reduce the requests your site makes, which in turn will save you about three to four times.

    PageSpeed tab

    The default tab active when you run a GTmetrix testing is the PageSpeed tab. It evaluates your website against Google PageSpeed rules.

    Each of the 26 rules will give your website a score of 0-100. GTmetrix adds those scores together to create your PageSpeed score.

    Because the 26 rules are not equally weighted, some of them will have a greater effect on your overall score than others.

    You can click on the arrow in order to expand one or more of the rules. This will give you details about specific elements on your website that are causing problems.

    Optimize images

    Overview of the primary performance indicators:

    GTmetrix offers a report that gives a summary about the page’s performance. Google Lighthouse gives you valuable information about performance enhancement. These include the number of contents, blocking durations and cumulative layout shifts. Your visitors’ most critical performance metrics should be your focus.

    You can track your performance using monitoring graphs and performance.

    You can easily monitor your website’s performance with scheduled monitoring. This allows for you to track the progress of your site in an interactive chart. Set up a system that alerts you when your site is experiencing problems. You can monitor your pages and run tests daily, weekly or monthly to ensure that they perform optimally. You can analyze your performance using four graphs: Web Vitals (page timings), Screen Resolution, Request Rates, Productivity Scores, and Screen Timings.

    The ability to zoom in, pan and select a date range can help you identify particular performance histories. You can make your data more contextual by annotating it and highlighting areas that are of particular interest. Website Symptoms, Page Timings, and other information are helpful for trigger alerts.

    Analyze your page on mobile devices:

    GTmetrix has both authentic Android devices and Simulated Devices. Use the GTmetrix app to see how your gear performs on the real world. Monitoring and API access are not available; PRO subscriptions only are available. It is possible to evaluate the performance of your application across more than 20 different mobile devices. A responsive website should load quickly on all devices.

    How to improve your GTmetrix score:

    As the global digital infrastructure grows, so do online users’ expectations regarding page loading times. Each website’s user experience impacts the speed at what a page load. Nearly half of all online visitors abandon websites that load slower than 3 seconds. Akamai research shows that 79% of visitors who are frustrated with websites’ speed will leave. Visitors to your site don’t convert as well as they should. This could mean that you might lose a lot in revenue due to a slow-loading website.

    In this article, we’ll show how to improve the performance of your website.

    Optimize images

    You can compress your images to shrink their file size with minimal or no loss of quality depending on which compression algorithm you use.

    High-resolution photos can use quite a bit of bandwidth when loading. The most common reason a website’s load time increases is because of large picture sizes. The compression of images on your website can speed up page load times without compromising quality. Your website will load faster if your files are smaller. Optimizing your photos and other assets will make your website load faster.

    Leverage browser caching

    Browser caching is a way to speed up load times. It stores static assets in the local browsers of visitors. Visitors’ browsers are able to access these assets via their local computers on subsequent visits.

    Many WordPress caching plug-ins, such as WP Rocket, WP Super Cache and WP Fastest Cache, already provide browser caching.

    Optimize CSS

    CSS and JavaScript’s ubiquitous use has enabled richer online experiences, even if it comes with a performance penalty. Use only one CSS file. Split your CSS into 2 sections

    1. An inline section that styles above the fold components
    2. the outer part that might delay.

    It will increase your performance. It will reduce the size of your code and speed up load time by using fewer operator declarations.

    Minification

    In order to improve the performance of your website, you must reduce the client-server requests from an account. Optimizing and minimising as many code lines as possible can help you achieve your goal. JavaScript exceeding 4096 bytes will be reduced without any difficulty. It is possible to keep the code simple and legible by removing all unnecessary spaces.

    You can leverage browser caching

    Browser caching is a way to speed up load times. It stores static assets in the local browsers of visitors. This allows browsers to access the assets stored locally on their local computers on subsequent visits.

    After you save the content to your browser cache, or temporary storage area, you can download it. When a page loads, it is temporarily saved or cached. Visitors won’t need to submit another HTTP request again to the server when they return to your site. This results in faster page loading. According to research, 40%-60% of site visitors arrive without a cache. Caching should take place for no less than a week, or even a year. You should enable browser caching to increase the responsiveness of your website and improve its performance.

    Limit HTTP requests

    These are actually three distinct rules but I’m combining them as the fundamental concept is the same.

    Minification refers to the removal of unnecessary characters from your site’s codes without altering its functionality. You can remove lines breaks and white spaces, for example.

    HTTP requests (Hypertext Transfer Protocol), are made whenever a browser requests a file, page, or picture from HTTP. According to one study, these queries consume approximately 80 percent the loading time of a web page. Because the browser limits you to four to six simultaneous connections per domain, loading more than 30 files simultaneously is impossible. It is because HTTP requests are longer than normal, so it takes more time for the website’s server to respond and retrieve all of the files. This can lead to a slower load time for your web page.

    Avoid landing page redirects

    URL redirects are useful to direct traffic. They can be useful for redirecting traffic to your site, but you should not use them.

    You can fix this by making sure that your internal links lead directly to the current URL. To avoid unnecessary redirects, you can redirect http://yoursite.com from https://yoursite.com.

    JavaScript Parsing Deferred

    When it comes to page load times, the speed at which your website is visible is as important as how long it takes for your entire site load.

    JavaScript can slow it down by forcing visitors’ web browsers to pause rendering the page in order to download JavaScript. It is also sometimes called render-blocking JavaScript.

    You can fix this by deferring JavaScript parsing so your site starts to load/parse JavaScript only after the visible part of your website has loaded.

    WP Rocket comes with a tool that can help you do this. You can also download the Async JavaScript plug-in, which is the same developer who created the Autoptimize plugin.

    Combine images using CSS sprites

    This advanced technique allows you to combine multiple images into one file using CSS. This reduces the number of HTTP requests required for your page to load.

    CSS sprites shouldn’t be used on all images. This is because of the negative SEO and accessibility implications. Also, you can’t add alt text to images anymore. Instead, CSS sprites should be used only for decorative images like client logos and social share icons.

    Scaled images

    A scaled image refers to an image that is perfectly sized according to the dimensions it will be used for. There’s a whole post over on Themeisle about scaled images.

    One way to easily serve scaled images on WordPress, is again with the Optimole plug – it can automatically do all the work so that your images always look perfect no matter what device a user is using.

    Specify image dimensions

    This one is HTML-related. When embedding an image, you need to specify its actual width and/or height.

    WordPress will automatically insert images when you add them to the editor. But you need to be specific about images that you have used elsewhere (such as in a plug-in).

    Minify HTML, CSS and JavaScript

    These are actually three distinct rules but I’m putting them all together because the fundamental concept is the same.

    Minification refers to the removal of unnecessary characters from your site’s codes without altering its functionality. You can remove lines breaks and white spaces, for example.

    Avoid landing page redirects

    URL redirects are useful to direct traffic. They can be useful for redirecting traffic to your site, but you should not use them.

    You can fix this by making sure that your internal links lead directly to the current URL. To avoid unnecessary redirects, you can redirect http://yoursite.com from https://yoursite.com.

    JavaScript Parsing Deferred

    When it comes to page load times, the speed at which your website is visible is as important as how long it takes for your entire site load.
    Combine images using CSS sprites

    This is a sophisticated technique that allows you to combine multiple images into one file using CSS. This reduces the number of HTTP requests required for your page to load.

    CSS sprites shouldn’t be used on all of your images. This is because they can cause accessibility and SEO issues. Instead, CSS sprites should be used only for decorative images like client logos and social share icons.

    Unfortunately, there isn’t a plugin that will automatically set up CSS colors sprites. This means you have to do it manually. Here’s how.

    Set compression

    Image compression has been discussed before, but the “compression” refers to compressing all your website’s files at server level using something called Gzip compression.

    Gzip compression is capable of shrinking files sizes by an average of 70%.

    Many WordPress performance plugins, such as WP Rocket, Super Cache and WP Fastest Cache, can be used to enable Gzip compression. For a specific solution, you can use Enable Gzip Compression for free.

    YSlow tab

    Your YSlow score uses a similar approach as your PageSpeed score. It just uses a different set to test against. The list is a little shorter – only 19 rules are included in the YSlow tab at GTmetrix.

    Every rule receives its own score. Your PageSpeed score is based upon the weighted average of all those scores.

    CDN usage:

    CDNs can speed up the page load time of your website by delivering static content from a network server around the globe. Find out more in this article.

    You can use the free Optimole plugin to serve your images via a CDN. Cloudflare can also be used as a CDN to host all static files.

    Content Delivery Network consists of many computers that are located in different cloud service providers to create the database. This not only improves page loading times but also reduces bounce rates. Reduce the time it takes to load a page. This will improve your performance. This will reduce the requests your site makes, which in turn will save you about three to four times.

    Minify JavaScript & CSS

    This is something I already discussed in the PageSpeed Section. A dedicated plugin such as Autoptimize can be used to minify CSS or JavaScript. You can also use many WordPress performance plugins to minify your CSS and JavaScript.

    Compress components

    This is the same thing as the PageSpeed tab recommendation to enable compression. This can be corrected by enabling Gzip compression.

    Many WordPress caching plugins have a Gzip compression function. You can also use Enable Gzip Compression plugin.

    Avoid URL redirects

    This is the exact same as PageSpeed’s “Avoid Landing Page Redirects” option.

    Do not rely on redirects to direct people to the correct destination. Always link to the current URL.

    Reduce DNS lookups

    Your browser must perform a DNS lookup on each domain where your site’s content is located.

    At least one DNS lookup will be performed for each site. You will need to look up additional DNS records if you are using external services (like Google Fonts, or the Google Analytics tracking code).

    Refrain from sending too many HTTP requests

    You can see HTTP requests more clearly in the Waterfall tab section (that is next).

    Waterfall tab

    Although the Waterfall tab may seem a little advanced, it is an extremely useful tool to analyze how your site loads and identify any bottlenecks that could slow down your site.

    The Waterfall tab will open and display a list listing all HTTP requests to this page. These are the GTmetrix “Requests”.

    Timing

    The Timings tab provides more details about the time taken to reach certain load times metrics. You can also see this information in Waterfall chart.

    GTmetrix will display below the description of each metrics if you hover your mouse over it.

    Video

    You can view the page load videos you have enabled when you started your tests in the Video tab.

    You can also slow them to 1/4th of their original speed in order to see details better.

    Videos are great because you can see your site loading and how it loads. How are the different parts of your site visible first? Are there any unusual loading problems, like “flash of unstyled contents”? These are helpful information to have when optimizing your site’s performance.

    Histories

    The History tab lets users see past tests results so you can compare how they have changed over the years.

    It will save all tests on this page for the previous 30 days. The test results from the past are deleted.

    If you make some adjustments to your GTmetrix speed scores, you might see improvements in page loading times.

    GTmetrix Speed Test: More

    GTmetrix speed testing tool is not just for the summaries. You should look at the details below if you want to get more from it.

    GTmetrix performance scores don’t need to be too important. However, they can give you some helpful guidance about areas where optimization is needed.

    You can also use the Waterfall tab to look into specific aspects such as page load times, images, scripts, and plugins.

    Our 11 ways to speed WordPress are a great way to get into the performance of WordPress.

    Conclusion

    You need a tool that can test the website under different conditions to ensure a quick site. GTmetrix makes it easy to do this. You can get a complete view of how your website is performing by setting up automatic monitoring from multiple locations.

    GTMetrix can help you fight slow site speeds.

    Be sure to test your homepage from more than one location. Also, don’t forget to optimize the PageSpeed and YSlow percentage scores.

    JavaScript can slow it down by forcing browsers’ to pause rendering the page in order to download JavaScript. This is why render-blocking JavaScript is often called.

    You can fix this by deferring JavaScript parsing so your site starts to load/parse JavaScript only after the visible portion has loaded.

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