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A while ago I wrote an article about a method to track page load times in Google Analytics. Short after this article Google came with their own technique to track page load times, but both methods have some disadvantages.
To give a clear understanding about the differences I want to show you this image:
Read more: Simulate Googles trackPageLoadTime without sampling »
Today I read a great presentation from Joshua Bixby (Strangeloop). He showed a nice way to create a business case for Web Performance Optimization (#wpo). The case is that a slower user experience leads to less revenue, but it's not easy to prove that. What you could do is set up an A/B test with a slower page as B variant. The upside is that you can make a business case, the downside is that you will lose revenue. Joshua came up with another option: we already have the connection speed and browser version in Google Analytics!
The older browsers and slower connection types have a negative impact on page load times. So they should show us numbers for people with a slower user experience.
Read more: And that is why you need to speed up your site! »
In the rebound an article about the tracking of your site's performance with Google Analytics. Almost a year ago I wrote this article in Dutch, but there are some improvements that made life easier. Google Analytics released the 'set events as goals' functionality that is really helpful here.
The script I'm going to explain will track page load time and page render time per individual URL. I know some other articles that describe a comparing technique but I really think the way I use it gives you more insights (at least for smaller sites).
I don't have to tell you how important it is to know how visitors experience your site. Sluggish sites will cost you money in the end. Site speed is a minor SEO ranking factor and fast sites tend to have more pageviews per visit and a higher conversion rate.
Read more: Track site speed / load time with Google Analytics events »
A very hot topic last year: site speed, web performance, site performance or whatever you want to call it (got better suggestions?). But how do you measure the speed of you own site? There are several tool that can measure the load times of your site, but which one is right?
The speed of a site is the time it takes from the moment a user navigates to your site (for example through a link) until the site is fully loaded and usable. But there are many factors in this period that helps keeping the visitor patient enough to wait for a full load. The first moment is the moment when the browser begins rendering a site: until that moment people have to look at a white screen where nothing happens. Then the site starts to appear on the screen bit by bit until he is usable. And the last stage is where all the images are loaded to make the site look complete.
Toegegeven, het is niet een nieuw idee om de snelheid van je pagina's te meten met javascript. Maar dit vervolgens doorgeven aan Google Analytics middels event tracking is dat wel. Nu Site Speed een officiële SEO ranking factor is, is het belangrijk om inzage te hebben in je snelheid.
De Google Webmaster Tools levert al een mooie grafiek over de tijd die Google over het renderen van je site doet. Zie voor meer uitleg mijn blog over het sneller maken van mijn eigen blog. Maar nog meer cijfers van alle laadtijden bij diverse gebruikers is altijd handig.
Op dit moment kan ik per pagina zien wat de totale laadtijd is geweest, maar ook het gemiddelde. Dat rapport ziet er als volgt uit:
Read more: Meet de snelheid van je site in Google Analytics »