Website speed has become a critical factor in user experience and search engine rankings. A slow-loading website frustrates visitors, impacts SEO, and ultimately affects your conversions. Google PageSpeed Insights is a powerful, free tool that helps analyze and improve your site's speed and performance.
In this guide, we'll show you how to leverage Google PageSpeed Insights to enhance your website's speed in 2025.
What is Google PageSpeed Insights?
Google PageSpeed Insights is a tool developed by Google to evaluate website performance on both mobile and desktop devices. It provides a performance score and actionable recommendations for improving key metrics such as load time, interactivity, and visual stability. These metrics, known as Core Web Vitals, include Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) for loading performance, First Input Delay (FID) for interactivity, and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) for visual stability.
By understanding and optimizing these metrics, website owners can deliver a faster and smoother experience to their users, which is increasingly critical in 2025 as user expectations grow higher.
Step 1: Analyze Your Website
To get started with Google PageSpeed Insights, head to the PageSpeed Insights website. This tool is free and straightforward to use, making it accessible to both beginners and advanced developers.
Once there, enter the URL of the page you want to analyze in the provided text field. For the most accurate results, analyze individual pages rather than the entire site at once. After clicking the "Analyze" button, the tool will process your request, retrieving data from Google's Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) to provide both real-world and simulated performance metrics.
The results include a Performance Score, which ranges from 0 to 100. A score above 90 is considered excellent, while scores below 50 indicate significant room for improvement. You’ll also find a detailed breakdown of Core Web Vitals, highlighting areas that need attention, such as LCP, FID, and CLS. To share or review the findings later, you can download the reports directly from the tool.
Step 2: Understand and Fix Core Web Vitals Failures
If your website’s report shows a “failed” status in the Core Web Vitals assessment, don’t worry. This just means there are specific areas on your website that need attention. These areas affect how fast your site loads, how stable it feels to users, and how quickly it responds to clicks or other actions.
Let’s break down the Core Web Vitals metrics in simple terms and what you can do to fix each one.
What is Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)?
LCP measures the time it takes for the largest piece of visible content on your page to load. This could be an image, a block of text, or a video. If this content takes longer than 2.5 seconds to appear, users may feel like your website is slow. Think about when you visit a page, and you’re left staring at a blank or partially loaded screen—it’s frustrating, right? That’s what LCP measures.
How to Fix LCP Issues:
Compress Images: If your page has large images, they’ll slow down the loading time. Use tools like TinyPNG to shrink image sizes without losing quality. Smaller images load faster.
Switch to WebP Format: Images in the WebP format are smaller and faster to load than traditional formats like JPEG or PNG.
Use Lazy Loading: This means images that are below the visible part of your page (the fold) won’t load until the user scrolls down to them. This reduces initial load time.
Upgrade Your Hosting Provider: If your hosting server is slow, even a well-optimized page won’t load quickly. A faster server can reduce delays.
Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN): A CDN stores copies of your website files in multiple locations worldwide, so users load the files from the nearest server. This reduces waiting time for users who are far from your hosting server.
What is Interaction to Next Paint (INP)?
INP measures how quickly your website reacts to user interactions. For example, if someone clicks a button, how long does it take for the page to respond? If it’s slow (over 200 milliseconds), users might feel your site is unresponsive.
How to Fix INP Issues:
Remove Unnecessary JavaScript: Extra JavaScript code can bog down your site. Get rid of scripts you don’t need.
Minify JavaScript Files: Minification reduces the size of your JavaScript files by removing unnecessary spaces and characters. Smaller files load faster.
Use Asynchronous Loading: This means your scripts load separately from the main page content, so users can interact with your site even before all scripts are fully loaded.
What is Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)?
CLS measures how much the layout of your page moves around while it’s loading. You’ve probably experienced this before—you’re about to click on a button, and suddenly the page shifts, and you accidentally click on something else. That’s CLS in action. A stable layout makes your site feel polished and easy to use.
How to Fix CLS Issues:
Set Dimensions for Images and Videos: Always specify the width and height for your images and videos in the code. This tells the browser how much space to reserve for them, so the layout doesn’t shift when they load.
Preload Fonts: Sometimes, text moves around because the browser hasn’t loaded the right font yet. Preloading fonts ensures they load faster.
Reserve Space for Ads: If your site has ads, make sure there’s a placeholder for them so they don’t push content around when they load.
By addressing these issues, you’ll not only improve your Core Web Vitals scores but also create a faster, smoother experience for your visitors. These changes can seem technical, but many tools, plugins, and professionals can help make these fixes straightforward.
For additional tips on optimizing images for speed and SEO, check out our blog on Optimizing Images for Google Search.
Step 3: Implement Opportunities and Diagnostics
The Opportunities and Diagnostics sections in your PageSpeed Insights report are like a checklist for optimizing your website’s performance. They highlight areas where you can make simple improvements to speed up your site.
Opportunities: What Are They?
Opportunities are specific suggestions Google gives you to make your site faster. Think of these as low-hanging fruit—easy fixes that can make a big difference.
For example:
Enable Text Compression: Imagine you’re sending a large box in the mail, but you compress it down to a smaller size first. Enabling text compression does the same thing for your website files. It shrinks them down so they load faster for visitors. You can enable compression using tools like Gzip or Brotli.
Defer Offscreen Images: This means your site will only load images when they’re about to appear on a user’s screen. For example, if an image is at the bottom of your page, it won’t load until the user scrolls down to it. This saves time when the page first loads. You can set this up using lazy loading.
Minify Resources: When your website’s code (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) has extra spaces or unnecessary characters, it takes longer to load. Minifying removes these extras, making the files smaller and faster to download. Tools like Terser or UglifyJS can help you do this.
Diagnostics: What Do They Mean?
Diagnostics are more detailed tips about what might be slowing your site down. They focus on things like:
Unused CSS and JavaScript: Sometimes, your website includes code that isn’t even being used. Removing it can reduce file sizes and speed things up.
Efficient Caching Policies: Caching means storing parts of your website (like images or scripts) on a user’s device, so they don’t have to download them again the next time they visit. If your caching policies aren’t set up correctly, visitors will have to keep reloading the same files, which slows things down. Adjust these settings so your site loads faster for repeat visitors.
For a deeper dive into key SEO tactics that can complement your site speed improvements, check out our post on Link-Building Tactics or SEO Tools for Small Businesses.
How to Implement These Fixes
Start with the easiest fixes first. If your report says you have unused CSS or JavaScript, use tools like PurifyCSS to remove it. If caching isn’t set up, check with your hosting provider or use a plugin if you’re on platforms like WordPress. For compression and lazy loading, most Content Management Systems (CMS) have plugins that can handle these tasks automatically.
By tackling the Opportunities and Diagnostics step by step, you’ll make noticeable improvements to your website’s speed and create a better experience for your users.
Step 4: Regular Monitoring
Improving your site speed isn’t a one-and-done task. It requires ongoing monitoring to ensure your website stays optimized over time. Regular monitoring helps you catch new performance issues as they arise and fix them before they impact user experience or your search engine rankings.
Why Monitoring Matters
Websites are dynamic, meaning they’re constantly changing. Every time you add new content, install a plugin, or update your website’s design, you might inadvertently introduce performance issues. Monitoring ensures these changes don’t negatively affect your site speed or user experience.
How to Monitor Effectively
Schedule Regular Tests: Make it a habit to run your website through Google PageSpeed Insights once a month or whenever you make significant changes. This will help you track improvements and catch any new issues early.
Use Automated Tools: Tools like Google Search Console or third-party monitoring platforms like Pingdom and GTmetrix can alert you to performance drops. These tools provide real-time feedback, so you’re always informed about your site’s health.
Track Core Metrics: Focus on the key metrics like LCP, INP, and CLS to ensure your website remains fast, responsive, and visually stable. Keep a record of your scores over time to see how your changes are impacting performance.
Involve Your Team: If you work with a developer or an IT team, share your monitoring results with them. They can help implement fixes and ensure your site remains optimized.
Watch for Trends: If you notice recurring issues, such as slow server response times or frequent layout shifts, it might be time to upgrade your hosting provider or rethink your website’s design strategy.
Benefits of Ongoing Monitoring
Stay Ahead of Competitors: A fast website gives you a competitive edge in both user experience and SEO.
Maintain User Satisfaction: Regular monitoring ensures your website continues to meet user expectations, reducing bounce rates and increasing engagement.
Adapt to Changes: As Google updates its algorithms or introduces new metrics, monitoring helps you stay compliant and maintain your rankings.
By dedicating time to regular monitoring, you’ll ensure your website remains fast, efficient, and ready to meet the demands of your audience.
For more advice on avoiding common SEO pitfalls that can hinder site performance, explore our post on Common SEO Mistakes and How to Fix Them.
Why Site Speed Matters in 2025
As user expectations continue to rise, site speed has become a critical factor in both user experience and search engine rankings. Google has made it clear that fast websites will have a competitive advantage, particularly as Core Web Vitals remain a key part of its ranking algorithm.
By leveraging Google PageSpeed Insights, you can ensure your website meets these demands, providing a seamless experience for visitors and boosting your chances of success in 2025 and beyond.
Additionally, consider enhancing your website’s SEO strategy alongside site speed improvements. At CodeMasters, we specialize in comprehensive SEO services designed to help your business thrive online.
Final Thoughts
Boosting your website's speed is more than just improving metrics; it's about delivering a superior user experience and achieving better search engine rankings. By following the steps outlined in this guide, you can confidently use Google PageSpeed Insights to enhance your site’s performance.
Start your journey today by analyzing your site with Google PageSpeed Insights and exploring our expert SEO services for long-term success.