First contentful paint is a user-centric perception metric. It refers to how long it takes for the browser to render the first non element such as images, text or canvas elements.

Having a fast first contentful paint is important as users will perceive your website is loading quickly, even if that’s not strictly the case. That said, a FCP is not about tricking users either, but it does give an idea about your general page speed.

Eye10 will display your FCP score for desktop and mobile. Look out for any scores that are displayed in red or orange text, meaning improvements are needed.

Some of the steps that may be required to improve your FCP score include to display text before and during font loading, minification of HTML/CSS or Javascript, remove any unused CSS, reduce time to first byte (TTFB), use SVG or WebP images and to reduce DOM size.

Speed index measures how long it takes for your website’s content to be seen in full. So, this means all the elements on the page have been fully loaded, and your website appears in its intended visual form. However, speed index is not a measure of the overall page speed rather user perception that the page has been loaded.

So, think of speed index in terms of user experience, especially when looking to reduce bounce rate from pages, especially if these pages are slow to load for your users.

An ideal speed index is between 0-3 seconds, given what we know about when users are likely to abandon a page if they perceive it is not loading fast enough.

If Eye10 shows anything less than a good score for your URLs speed index, some of the aspects you should consider implementing include reducing render blocking resources and reducing your website’s main-thread work.

Remember, as with every other aspect that can affect how fast your website is to load, the more complicated the elements, the more likely speed issues are to occur. So sometimes simplicity is best when designing a website to reduce such costly errors within your wider SEO strategy.

The average website consists of a large variety of elements such as headings, text, images, buttons, widgets, tables and many more. Each of these elements will vary in size, meaning they will take different amounts of time to load up properly for your users.

Largest contentful paint (LCP) is a method of measuring how well optimised your website is, factoring in all of these different elements on the page. Specifically, there is often one element that stands out most when measuring how fast a page is to load due to its size. So an LCP score is going to be based mostly around this one element which will then affect how well your website is optimised for speed overall.

Responsive websites are designed with different devices in mind. This can mean that your LCP time can vary on desktop vs mobile. So, certainly factor this in when looking to make any optimisation improvements in terms of the design. For example, if your LCP score is good for desktop but not for mobile, only mobile needs optimising.

Some of the steps you can take to improve a poor LCP score include to resize or compress images, improve your website’s hosting provider or capabilities, use a content delivery network (CDN) and eliminate render-blocking scripts.

If using a website template, look out for slow to load hero sections which may look great visually, but can take an age to load especially if they are image heavy.

Time to interactive (TTI) is the time it takes for the page to become fully interactive after a user arrives on the page. What this means in layman’s terms, is that a page can appear to be fully ready to use, but until all of the elements have properly loaded, they won’t actually be usable, which can create a frustrating user experience, especially if the page contains a lot of interactive elements.

What we know about page speed and SEO, is that users expect a web page to load within 3 seconds. However, the average TTI is actually 22 seconds. So, users may be on the web page itself, but the elements they are trying to click or interact with aren’t immediately accessible. Hence this doesn’t provide a satisfactory experience - especially if users then assume the page is broken or glitchy when it simply hasn’t loaded yet.

Often, the cause of a slow TTI score is due to having too many Javascript elements on a page. Although all of the other speed metrics Eye10 measures are also tightly correlated with TTI too. So, it’s definitely the case that by addressing any other issues with your page speed, your TTI may well improve on its own.

Total blocking time refers to the time taken between the first contentful paint and the time to interactive having fully loaded. So, think of total blocking time as a summary of all your page speed metrics.

User input such as clicks, screen taps or keyboard presses are factored in when calculating total blocking time. Specifically, how long the user is ‘blocked’ from completing any of these actions on your page when trying to load it.

Optimising your website’s page speed will ultimately seek to improve total blocking time, which should be thought of as a culmination of each of the other metrics.

Cumulative layout shift (also known as CLS) means that the layout of a page adapts as the page loads. The reason CLS happens is often down to the template selected or indeed, how the page has been designed. Quite simply, browsers tend to load elements on a single page at different speeds. Therefore, the way the page loads may not give a seamless feel when browsing the page, and ultimately, some elements may be so slow to load that users give up waiting.

An example of a page that has a low CLS score is the Google homepage. You’ll notice that this page has a minimal number of elements, making it fast to load and easy to navigate. While it’s not the case that your website has to feature as little elements as possible, factoring in how your page loads up is important, especially when it comes to avoiding any shift in the layout.

Eye10’s pageSpeed tool makes it easy to measure cumulative layout shift. If your webpage has a high CLS score, we’d suggest trying a different website template or consulting a developer to tweak the elements on your web page so that they load with as little CLS as possible. Remember to test your website on different browsers and devices when making improvements until the issue is resolved.

There are a variety of website speed tests on the market. Surprisingly, each tool can give different results owing to the location of the tool versus where your server is located, as well as the capabilities of that tool.

That’s why it’s important to check your page speed insights on alternative tools to try to identify general patterns, as well as to discover additional information.

Eye10’s Pagespeed Tool provides data from both Google Pagespeed Insights and Gtmetrix. This means you don’t have to pay for subscriptions across different tools or even spend the time repeating searches on either website - Eye10 combines everything you need for you quickly and efficiently.

Here is an overview of the aspects each tool will tell you. Pagespeed tool will combine these findings on the page so you can see what each tool discovers simultaneously.

When you enter your URL into Eye10’s Pagespeed tool, you’ll be presented with a number of highly important aspects from Google Pagespeed Insights.

Eye10 also gives you the option to toggle between mobile and desktop readings, so you can get a comprehensive idea about how fast your pages are to load on either device option.

Google Pagespeed Insights includes score summary, first contentful paint, speed index, largest contentful paint, time to interactive, total blocking time and cumulative layout shift.

Ensure that both mobile and desktop results show as green when toggling between each device type.

GTmetrix is yet another popular tool that’s used for measuring the speed of web pages. It allows you to find out even more information about your page while gaining an all-important second opinion.

The aspects GTmetrix will give you within the Pagespeed Tool include a list of the top issues affecting your performance, Pagespeed score, performance grade, fully loaded time, total page size and requests.

You’ll notice that some aspects are similar to Google Pagespeed Insights and others offer more detail, such as the total size of your page and how long your page takes to fully load.

We’ve answered some of the most questions about Pagespeed below. If you don’t see your query below, or if you need specific help with the Eye10 Pagespeed Tool, please contact us directly.

Pagespeed insights is an official Google Tool, and given Google is the leading search engine in the world, such a tool wouldn’t have been developed if it wasn’t important.

Ultimately, search engines want to send users to the pages that will offer up the best experience, given search engines are also in competition with each other too. Relevant websites that are fast to load are therefore always going to be preferred to slow, glitchy websites.

After all, if users are leaving because pages are taking too long to load, even if your content has been methodically SEO optimised, nobody will stay to read it.

So, it’s definitely worth looking at all of the suggestions that Eye10 will give you, so that your website will load up quickly.

Google pagespeed Insights ranks your website URL score against the following categories:

90-100 - Good
58-89 - Okay
0-49 - Bad

Ideally, your website should take between 1 to 3 seconds to load, bearing in mind that 53% of mobile visits are abandoned if the page takes longer than 3 seconds to load.

Look at the score Eye10 gives you for your page load times for both Google Pagespeed Insights and GTmetrix, depending on whether the site is being accessed on desktop or mobile.

You’ll then see a breakdown of both scores along with a list of changes needed to improve on the score, should any issues be detected.

Eye10’s Pagespeed Tool provides up to 30 requests a day on a Professional package, or up to 100 requests per day on our Enterprise package.

Simply enter your URL and Eye10 will do the rest! We recommend checking how fast your pages are to load regularly, especially if you’ve recently made any changes to your website including to its design or hosting capabilities.

Yes, page speed is a ranking factor that’s related to technical SEO.

Search engines do not want to send users to websites that take an age to load, because this results in poor user experience. So if you want to climb those search engine rankings, you need to do all you can to reduce the amount of time it takes for your pages to load fully.

There are a multitude of aspects within your website that can be optimised in order to achieve a faster website load time. Here is a snapshot of the top things we recommend checking.

Upgrade your website’s hosting capabilities - Over time, your website traffic not to mention size will likely grow over time. Ensure that your website can handle the amount of traffic it receives for where it’s at now. Likewise, you may have selected a hosting package that offers poor results where page load time is concerned, so check the speed with your hosting provider, and compare this with other providers to see if you’re on the right package or not.

Use a CDN - A CDN stands for content delivery network. In essence, a CDN replicates versions of your website in servers located across the world, reducing the amount of time it takes for your page to load. Look to use a CDN if your hosting provider isn’t in the same country as your target audience. If you have a global target audience for your website, CDNs are also recommended.

Optimise images - Unlike text, image files are much more substantial in size. If any images on your website haven’t been reduced in file size before uploading (i.e. by resizing the image), your images could be putting a lot of strain on the user's bandwidth capabilities.

Check the website code for errors - Regardless of what your website has been built on (including pre-made templates), check there are no obvious errors or glitches slowing your pages down.

Remove pop ups - Pop ups are one of many elements that can slow your pages down. Remove any such features so that your pages can load as fast as possible.

It’s easy to get lured in by cheap hosting deals, or even to choose the most popular names on the market. But before you take out any hosting package for your website, you must read the small print. Specifically, look at the server capacity you will recieve, ensuring that you choose a package that truly meets the needs of your website.

Also look at how long you will be tied into the contract too, should you need to upgrade servers or even switch providers. It can be a complicated process to switch hosting providers, and some platforms may impose restrictions preventing you from doing so for a certain amount of time.

Consider that if the hosting provider isn’t located in your country (i.e your website is in the UK but your website will be hosted in the US), a CDN will be required. So ideally, the hosting provider should always be located in the same country as your website to avoid this issue entirely. Although for any websites with a global audience (i.e. blogs), a CDN is still recommended.

Be sure to check user reviews also. Opt for the hosting platform with the best packages based on capabilities and allowances, along with one that has dedicated customer support.

Granted, not all entrepreneurs or startups have the budget for a web developer or designer. But, as with every other service your website needs, without the required expertise to ensure a professional outcome, it could cost more to put the problem right in the long run.

Web developers are responsible for building your website, whereas web designers take care of how your website actually looks. Both specialisms can work to ensure your website will load quickly. If you have an existing website that’s slow to load, the new design will need to eliminate all of the problems of the current design, and this goal can only be achieved with the right expertise at your side.

Either way, we’d suggest using our Pagespeed Tool and looking at the analytical breakdown to see where your website is currently at now. Likewise, if your website is currently active, the data will point you in the right direction when it comes to understanding which aspects of your website are slowing things down.

Yet another reason why web developers and designers are integral to the website building process, is that they can advise on which elements simply aren’t necessary to include on your website. Or, those which can be optimised so that they take less time to load on the page.

If you are designing your own website, consider what elements your page really needs to complete its intended function. Unnecessary elements aren’t going to add value to your users, and worse still they will slow down your page.

Our final point is to ensure that you don’t just build your website and then forget about it! As with all aspects of your SEO, regularly checking the status of your page speed through Eye10’s Pagespeed Tool is going to allow you to get on top of any issues fast. Otherwise, you may be completely unaware that certain pages are slow to load causing a poor user experience and high bounce rate.

Eye10 offers a generous amount of daily requests for Pagespeed Tool, so be sure to use these so that your website will truly benefit from your subscription.