What was the last time that you quit a website due to its slow loading speed? This is not a common problem. Slow-loading websites are a major annoyance for most internet users. This article will discuss best practices to improve your Google PageSpeed Score in 2022. Continue reading!

According to Pingdom, 38 percent of website visitors will abandon a site if it takes longer than five seconds to load. Unbounce found that only 15% of websites have acceptable page speeds.

This is a very damaging statistic, especially when you consider how important page speed is in ensuring conversion.

It begs the question, “What is the optimal page speed?” This question is constantly changing. Companies now strive for a load time of fewer than three seconds, whereas in the past pages could take up to seconds.

Google PageSpeed Insights is a great tool to keep track of page speed. This tool can help you assess the speed of your page and give you a score to help you determine if you need to make improvements. A score of 90 or more is generally acceptable.

If you are not able to achieve this score, these are the best practices that you can use to improve your PageSpeed insights score.

How to improve your Google PageSpeed Insights Score in 2022

After the major Web Vitals update, Google Pagespeed insights are more important than ever. Google’s Web Vitals initiative provides unified guidance on quality signals essential for delivering great web user experiences. This was the most important algorithm update in Google’s history. We have tried to show you how to improve your page speed insights score.

1. Reduce Your Images

Aesthetics are very important in today’s digital world. You might be tempted to put high-quality images onto your website. This is a good step and the quality of your images is important. However, quality images should not be confused with high-resolution images.

Even if you don’t have the best resolution, you can still get excellent quality. Compressing images is a great way to improve website speed. You can reduce the image size up to 50% without compromising quality with compression tools.

A plugin called WP Mush Image Compression & Optimization, which is free, can be useful for WordPress users.

You can also use other plugins if your website isn’t built on WordPress. Crush. pics can be used to create Shopify tools. Optimizilla and Compress JPEG are also great options.

2. Eliminate unnecessary redirects

Websites that redirect to other pages after you click on the landing page link are another major annoyance.

Both the inconveniences and the benefits are related. Your page’s load time will increase the more redirects you have. Eliminating unnecessary redirects can help you kill two birds.

A responsive design is essential for this purpose. Responsive design ensures that websites remain accessible regardless of the device on which they are viewed.

Google says that pages with low PageSpeed Scores tend to display a specific redirect pattern. These are some possible patterns:

• xyz.com -> www.xyz.com -> m.xyz.com. These websites are very slow on mobile devices.

• xyz.com -> m.xyz.com/home. This design is slower than responsive.

Is it possible to imagine a responsive website design? Its URL (in this example, xyz.com), will load the landing page regardless of which device it is accessed from, without redirects. This is the goal.

3. Eliminate all render-blocking resources

An excellent way to increase page speed is to get rid of the render-blocking resources. These resources can also impact page speed.

You probably don’t know what render-blocking resources mean unless you are a computer expert. It’s not a problem, we learned it!

These resources are CSS and JavaScript scripts that slow down page loading. Because every visitor’s browser must first download these scripts, and then process them before the page can be displayed, this is called “slow loading resources”. 

These resources can cause website problems if placed above the fold. Google offers a solution to this problem. This includes:

• Autoptimize plugins (if your website has a small size) can be used to integrate your CSS and JavaScript into HTML files. This is not a good option for large websites that have a lot of scripts.

• Your JavaScript file can be delayed during the HTML parsing process. Once the parsing is complete, your JavaScript file will be downloaded. This allows scripts to be loaded in the order they appear on a page.

This is a very technical field. To combat it, you will need a dedicated guide.

4. Enhance Your Perceived Performance

The MOVR report revealed some peculiar consumer behaviors. Within four seconds of a page loading, more than 11 percent of mobile users start scrolling down a website. Even if the page isn’t loaded completely, 9 percent of users scroll down.

This means that you don’t have to make sure your page loads fast. You should optimize the page’s perceived performance. Prioritize the fast loading of the content above the fold. This will increase your page speed score automatically.

What is perceived performance?

This refers to the user’s perception of the website’s loading speed. This perception can be very different from the actual loading time of your website. Websites that load from the top may load in five seconds, but they appear to be performing in three seconds.

Your core elements above the fold should load first, before any third-party widgets or ads. Make sure the structure-giving content of your website loads before the aesthetic elements. The rest of your website will load as soon as the users have processed the information.

5. Use browser caching

Browser caching is another tool that Neil Patel claims can boost your Google PageSpeed Score. This one is much simpler than the other techniques mentioned in this guide and requires little effort.

A page will take longer to load because it is fetching all of its resources. It must retrieve and load all images and other elements every time the website is reloaded. It then has to deal with the heavy HTML and coding.

This task is repetitive, as you can see. Any effort can be reduced to improve website performance. Browser caching is where it comes in.

It allows browsers to remember pages and resources previously loaded. It doesn’t have to load again.

This allows website visitors to start their journey on the landing pages without having to wait for repetitive data such as logos or footers to reload when clicking on other pages.

Contrary to popular belief you don’t have to be a programmer to use this technique. Many tools can help you do this. You can use W3 Total Cache for WordPress.

How do you make it work? There’s a plugin to help you do it. This is possible even if you don’t have to be a programmer.

6. Use AMP

Accelerated Mobile Pages is an open-source tool used by Google for mobile pages to load more quickly. To ensure that a website loads quickly, it removes unnecessary content. The initials might be visible in various Google search results.

After removing incompatible features, the platform provides smooth navigation for mobile users.

This simplified version of the website allows users to scroll through different stories and content without having to leave a page and redirect to another. You can swipe right or left to see other articles. They will appear immediately with minimal formatting.

Neil Patel has published a case study that shows Gizmodo increased its load speed three times by using the AMP feature. It is easy to implement and you can also benefit from it.

Ending remarks

There are many ways to improve your Google PageSpeed Insight score. These are the most important, and we have focused on the easiest to follow for novices as well as experts.