What’s this about Google’s Test My Site Tool?

This is an extract from TWIS SEO News & Updates 30 June 2017.

Find out about the latest updates to Google’s Test My Site Tool in this post. It’s a link / email magnet, but it does have some handy and redeeming features.

If you would like to discuss the ways page speed could impact your web business, and improve traffic and conversions, please feel free to contact me.

#SEO #MobileFirst #PageSpeed #TechnicalSEO

Google’s Mobile Test My Site Tool Updated

Summary:

  • Google has recently updated its Mobile Test My Site tool, which simulates load times and issues on a 3G mobile connection.
  • The new update gives:
    • Total Loading Time (which may be very different from first paint).
    • Estimated Visitor Loss (due to to loading lags).
    • Comparison to similar sites in the same industry.
    • Headline fixes to speed up your site.
    • An opportunity to receive a more detailed report, and other occasional pieces of information from Google. Think of the Test My Site Tool as a Link / Email Magnet.

TWIS 30 June 2017 Google Test MY Site Update

Mobile Page Speed Actions::

  1. Head to the Test My Site tool, enter your URL and run the tool.
  2. Wait for a minute or two for the test to run.
  3. Look at the three panels of speed test results given, share them with your webmaster.
  4. Either subscribe to get the detailed report, or get your webmaster to subscribe.
  5. If you don’t want to subscribe, use the standard Google PageSpeed Tool, which doesn’t need an email sign-up to get full results.
  6. If you’re really serious about mobile page speed, use the excellent GTMetrix speed tool, which combines Google’s version and Yahoo’s YSlow.
  7. Once you have run the tool’s on the home page, make sure you run them on your key pages, and competitor pages to see how you shape up.
  8. Contact me if you would like to discuss optimising Page Speed further.

Page Speed Discussion:

Page speed is terrifically important to a good web experience and is moderately important to ranking. Unfortunately, with the rush to dynamic JavaScript there is an awful lot of bloat and inefficiency on the web – page loads can be blocked by waiting for big JS files to load, process, execute and run, and by big files. On desktop, this isn’t so much of a problem, but on mobile, using 3G connections, it definitely  is.

Page Speed and load times are not a direct ranking factor currently, unless the page really struggles to load. Speed is applied after relevancy considerations are taken into account. This is unlikely to change, otherwise hosts which provide the quickest returns to Googlebot will be in for an uptick in business. Page Speed will affect bounce rates and hang-time on site, which means that, although not direct ranking factors, if users go back to Google and use other results to fulfil their search needs, then your site is likely to subside in rankings.

Aside from the looming Mobile First Index, Google, as the maker of mobile devices and the owner of the world’s biggest mobile operating system (Android), has a vested interest in ensuring that mobile experiences are good, quick and not frustrating to the user.

What is really important for Page Speed is that you are faster than your competitors, and your key landing pages and key conversion pages load superfast.

More info:

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Mobile First is NOT Mobile Friendly

Google Mobile First Not Mobile Friendly

I recently wrote about how Google’s Mobile First is Not Mobile Friendly. Read it now.

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TL;DR

  • Google has updated its Test My Site Tool.
  • There are a few handy new features.
  • It’s still a link / email magnet.
  • Read The State of SEO in mid-2017.

Thanks for reading. If you would like to discuss what these changes mean for your web property, or would like to know how to implement them, please feel free to contact me.

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