There’s no doubt about it: Google loves its speed. Whether it’s through Google’s obsession with having an Instant search, or its Google Chrome browser (or OS!), it’s plain to see Google’s something of a speed-freak. Sadly, Google’s love isn’t a “suit yourself if you don’t like it” situation; the company is so enthusiastic about creating a faster web that your site’s load speed will impact both your Google AdWords page quality (which in turn impacts your costs) and your actual Google SERP.
How should you resolve this? There are a great number of SEO, coding, and design tactics you can use to get your page to load more quickly. Whatever you do, however, it can be tricky to figure out how quickly the page is actually loading. After all, you only know how it responds in your specific geographic region, with your specific computer, and (unless you’re very thorough) one or two browsers. To help remedy this, Google has created a “site speed” tool in Google Analytics.
The site speed tracker takes a look at all the information you could need related to the load speed of your pages. You’ll see which pages are loading most quickly, what browsers aren’t responding well, which geographic regions are having trouble, and much more. There are a few steps required before this feature can be used, however.
- You must enable to the new Google Analytics. This will allow you to check out features that have yet to hit the standard release.
- You must enable the time tracking features (dubbed “Site Speed” in the interface).
- You must install the new Google Analytics code that is provided for you.
With these few alterations made, you’ll be able to see just how fast your pages load – and you’ll be able to see it through Google’s eyes.
[via the Google Analytics Blog]
