Hi guys,
the Google PageSpeed report suggests me to apply these changes to my website:
Leverage browser caching
Setting an expiry date or a maximum age in the HTTP headers for static resources instructs the browser to load previously downloaded resources from local disk rather than over the network
Eliminate render-blocking JavaScript and CSS in above-the-fold content
Your page has blocking CSS resources
How can I solve this? Thanks.
For the browser cache add something like this to the htaccess on the server:
## EXPIRES CACHING ##
<IfModule mod_expires.c>
ExpiresActive On
ExpiresByType image/jpg "access 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/gif "access 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/png "access 1 year"
ExpiresByType video/mp4 "access 1 year"
ExpiresByType text/css "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/pdf "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/javascript "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/x-javascript "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/x-icon "access 1 year"
ExpiresDefault "access 2 days"
</IfModule>
## EXPIRES CACHING ##
The rest is a bit trickier, but frankly I wouldn’t lose too much sleep over it if your site is reasonably well optimised and you have good hosting.
Thanks for your reply.
Which of these options do you suggest to select when exporting the project to get the highest possible Google PageSpeed ranking? I need to keep it high for Google AdWords.
I only use cache bust CSS and JS during development, specifically because I do not want the browser to cache old data when I am regularly updating the site. Once it is complete I turn that option off for the final upload.
You can try lazy loading, however it comes with the caveat that animations can seem a fraction less smooth. It is also the case that lazy loading is something being programmed directly into browsers like Chrome, so it will happen by default, therefore I don’t know how useful this will be in the longterm. It may even become counterproductive.
In all honesty I wouldn’t sweat it too much on the page speed results. I’ve seen sites that were dog slow receive high marks and others that were blinding fast have a low score, so I tend to take it all with an industrial sized pinch of salt. There are certainly areas you can work on like properly optimised images, having a fast server and avoiding call outs to external services, but sites built in Blocs are certainly not slow unless you do something to make them slow.
I’d second @Flashman. I honestly wouldn’t pay too much attention pretty much anything Google tell you. 99% of it is made up nonsense; created I suspect by well-paid people who need to do something, anything, to justify their position in the business.
I’ve been doing this 20 years, running my own various online businesses and building and managing sites for others. In this time Google have come out with some whooper requirements and statements, most get forgotten about. Indeed, many of Google own sites and pages fail their own tests.
As I always say, when it comes to SEO: A terribly designed and built website with great and engaging content will get good rankings. A brilliantly designed and built website with poor quality uninteresting content won’t.
Just stick to the basics in terms of site build and structure and focus on great content.
The point is that I get terrible quality scores in Google Ads because of “poor landing page experience” and if I test my website with thinkwithgoogle.com I get “slow” as result and I think this is really penalizing me in Google Ads. My website looks good and well organized to me… could you perhaps take a look at it and tell me what do you think?
Thanks very much.
It opened very fast here. Was there a reason other than speed where your site was deemed a poor landing page experience? My main observation is simply that there isn’t much information on the page. I wonder if Google is hitting that full page hero bloc and interpreting that part alone as the landing page.
I don’t know because Google Ads unfortunately doesn’t get very specific…
Google rarely offers solutions, only vague indications with information that is often contradictory, so I always tend to think the only useful analytics is your bank balance.
If I step back a moment and look at this as a web developer with some experience in online selling I would say that your website does not make it clear what you expect me to do as visitor or guide me effectively to that target with a call to action.
On a main landing page you should really make it clear what the offer is and the expected action. The choice of words and graphics could be more compelling and involving for the visitor.
Thanks for your feedback, sometimes others can see weaknesses that you can’t. I will add an h2 with a clear call to action in the main hero bloc.
What about the possibility that Google could interpret the full page hero bloc as an entire landing page? Is it really possible?
Again, thanks for the help!
Google is all powerful (apparently) but not always that clever, so yes it is possible they are being tripped up by a full page header, though I don’t have any concrete evidence of that. I know it was struggling with lazy load in some cases and indeed animations a while back.
I did a website for a dyslexia teacher earlier this year and if I search for a dyslexia teacher in her area she is top of Google, but it is the about page that appears without the hero bloc. That may just be because the about page has more text so Google thinks it is more useful to visitors. As a test, I just tried searching for a specific phrase on the home page below that hero bloc and that did appear at the top then.
Interesting topic. So you web designers/builders, who knows the importance of using SEO to the best advantage for your projects, if you’re going using Google tools then who do you trust to bring back trusting results?
It will vary on every project, but ultimately there is always a degree of trial & error, studying the competition and making adjustments over time.
You have to pick your battles wisely as well. Trying to rank at the top of Google for a competitive search term nationwide like “car hire US” will inevitably require vast external marketing beyond onsite Seo. On the other hand, you could probably rank well for a service in a local area with very little marketing.
The difficulty for a developer occurs when you have clients with zero understanding or budget for marketing, yet simply expects their website to appear at the top of Google across a wide area or subject, as though it was their constitutional right.
lol very true. The effort placed in SEO depends on the budget. I always encourage people to get active with social media and make sure they link to their sites, even post pages from their site. Just my personal opinion, but activity seems to have a big influence.