Getting a perfect 100% on Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool is no easy task.
It’s not going to happen overnight, either. You’ll have to do some legwork and spend some hours at the grindstone.
But if you want to save traffic, drive more conversions, and bring in more revenue, you need to do it.
It may be tedious and tiresome, but you need those conversions. You can’t be lazy and risk leaving traffic and profit on the table.
Here are the top four ways you can speed up your site and score a perfect 100% with Google.
1. Compress Your Images
The biggest cause of slow pages and low scores is large images.
When I fixed this on my own site, I found a huge impact on speed.
One of the top optimization techniques for fixing image size is compression.
You can save an average of 50 percent or more on image size by using simple compression tools.
If you use WordPress, one of the best ways to do this without spending much time is to use a plugin, like WP Smush Image.
how to improve page insight speed using smush image
WP Smush has tons of awesome features for free.
You can smush images automatically by adding the plugin. It will scan your media library on WordPress and detect images that it can compress:
improve page speed insights score wp smush
If you want to smush tons of new images for your site in bulk, you can upload them directly into the plugin.
You can smush up to 50 images at a single time, making it one of the fastest tools on the market:
bulk smushing google pagespeed insights tool example
If you head to the settings for this plugin, you can turn on the setting to automatically smush images on upload.
bulk smushing google pagespeed insights automatic
If you enable this setting, you’ll never have to worry about compression again. And if you compress all of the existing images on your site, then you don’t have to worry about it every time you upload.
WP Smush is an excellent, free tool for the everyday WordPress user.
But, if you don’t use WordPress, what do you do?
If you run a Shopify-based store and site, you can use Crush.pics:
page speed insights crush pics shopify tool
Crush.pics says that you can expect a big jump in PageSpeed Insights scores using their tool:
PageSpeed score before compression: 75/100. PageSpeed score after compression: 87/100
If you aren’t familiar with plugins or don’t like to use them for your site, you can use free tools online like Compress JPEG or Optimizilla.
Both are fast, free tools that allow you to compress up to 20 images in a single upload.
Check out this example image that I compressed to give you an idea of how impactful these programs can be:
pagespeed insights optimize image example
I reduced the file size by 68 percent in just two seconds using Optimizilla. It reduced the size from 380KB to 120KB with almost no quality difference!
You can use all of these tools for free and you should definitely implement them if you can’t use a plugin.
2. Use Browser Caching
Browser caching works by “remembering” the previously-loaded resources so that it doesn’t have to reload them upon every single visit.
When a website visitor travels to a new page on your site, all of your data, like logos and footers, won’t need to load again.
That will result in a big increase in speed when people land on your site.
How do you implement it? Thankfully, there’s a plugin for it. You don’t need to be a coding expert to do it.
Try using W3 Total Cache for WordPress sites. It’s got over one million active installs and is the most popular caching plugin on the market:
google pagespeed insights w3 cache tool
W3 Total Cache claims that it can give you at least a 10x improvement in overall site performance.
On top of that, they claim (and back up) that this plugin will help you achieve higher results on Google’s PageSpeed tools.
The tool also helps you minify HTML (which we will dive into next), JavaScript, and CSS, giving you up to 80 percent bandwidth savings.
Try using W3 Total Cache today to give your website a fast, easy boost in speed even if you don’t have coding experience.
3. Minify Your HTML
Minimizing the space your HTML coding takes up is another big factor in getting a perfect score from Google.
Minification is the process of removing or fixing unnecessary or duplicated data without impacting how a browser will process the HTML.
It involves fixing code, formatting, removing unused code, and shortening code when possible.
Once again, thanks to the awesome plugin options of WordPress, you don’t need to be a coding genius to fix this.
One of the best tools to do this is HTML Minify.
You can download this plugin for free directly from their site and install it to your WordPress account in seconds.
You can also install it directly from this plugin page.
google pagespeed insights minify HTML
Once you install the plugin, you only need to take a few steps before you see an instant impact on your site.
Head to the settings tab on your Minify HTML plugin and enable all of the following settings:
page speed insights minify code tip
You can effectively kill multiple birds with one stone.
Google’s PageSpeed Insights recommends that you minify HTML, JavaScript, and CSS.
Enable the “Minify HTML” + “Inline JavaScript” settings.
Next, be sure to select yes for “Remove HTML, JavaScript and CSS comments.”
The great thing about this plugin is that it will tell you what the recommended action is under each setting.
Follow these actions if you are unfamiliar with how these settings work.
Minify your coding today and you should see an instant impact on your insights report.
4. Implement AMP
AMP is short for Accelerated Mobile Pages.
It’s a project implemented by Google to help mobile pages load faster.
It works by making an open-source format that strips away tons of unnecessary content, making your mobile pages load nearly instantly.
It gives users a more streamlined experience on mobile without any clunky features that don’t work well on mobile devices.
If you browse the Internet on your mobile phone, you probably have clicked on an AMP-based article.
Here’s what they look like:
google pagespeed insights guide AMP
They are often relegated to the “Top Stories” section of Google search results and they load up instantly.
They don’t have much formatting, which helps them load quickly and deliver the content that the mobile user wants to see.
When a searcher on Google clicks one of these AMP articles, they see the content like this:
google pagespeed insights amp example
It’s a simplified version of the real website that allows a user to scroll between different stories without leaving the web page and clicking on the next.
This feature streamlines the user experience on mobile.
Gone are the days where you had to wait 10 seconds for a site to load, then click back to the search results page, and wait another 10 seconds for the next site to load.
Here you can access the content of multiple articles without clicking the back button once.
It’s extremely effective at speeding up your site and reducing the likelihood that someone will leave.
Tons of companies are taking advantage of AMP.
The company WIRED started implementing AMP to do a better job of reaching their customers.
google pagespeed insights wired example
They were finding that their mobile user experience was too slow. Conversions were simply not happening because of the speed issues and visitor retention problems.
Deciding to invest time into AMP made a huge impact for WIRED.
They increased their click-through rate from organic search results by 25 percent.
They found a 63 percent increase in CTRs on ads in AMP stories, too.
They also were able to add AMP stories to over 100k articles on their site.
Gizmodo also hopped on the AMP train and saw huge improvements on their mobile site.
pagespeed insights case study on AMP
They were getting over 100k AMP page visits every single day with load times that were 3x faster than standard mobile pages.
Conversions increased by 50 percent, too.
It’s safe to say that AMP can significantly increase conversions and mobile speed, giving you a massive opportunity to score higher on Google’s PageSpeed Insights.
If you want to start using AMP on your own site, there are a few ways to do it.
If you’re familiar with HTML, you can follow AMP’s detailed tutorial here.
For those who are less technologically savvy or have no experience in HTML, try using a WordPress plugin.
One of the most popular plugins is AMP for WP.
AMP For WP google pagespeed insights guide
It has over 80,000 active installs and has constant support and updates.
The plugin includes an AMP page builder that you can easily drag and drop page elements on:
page speed insights AMP builder page
It’s one of the easiest ways to create AMP-friendly content.
All you have to do is download and install the plugin on your WordPress dashboard and activate it.
From there, you can use the page builder on each new post that you upload.
These pages will then create an AMP-friendly version that will show up in mobile search results.
AMP is a proven way to speed up your mobile site and reduce your speed to under one second–and tons of companies are finding success with it.
Keep it up!!👆👆