How to increase your Blog page speed insights page speed
It doesn't take a genius to figure out that going mobile
is the new norm these days. A mobile-friendly site is no longer a
luxury, but a necessity. If you're working on making your website
mobile-friendly, and haven't heard of PageSpeed Insights, then you know
nothing! Google has put together (and now updated) a great tool - PageSpeed Insights - to help developers and webmasters make their pages mobile-friendly, with recommendations on mobile usability, and more.
It is the goal of any webmaster to optimize their website so as to
minimize its loading time. A fast-loading page goes a long way in
improving your website's user experience. But suppose you manage a very
fast ~1 second load time for your website. If that comes at the cost of
usability, then it's really not an improvement.
For example, a user might need to zoom out, or scroll down quite a bit
in order to read the content on your site. The time wasted between the
page loading, and up until the moment the user can start interacting
with your website counts as much as the initial loading time. Well, this
is where the PageSpeed Insights come in.
The PageSpeed Insights Tool provides valuable information regarding your
website, and how you can optimize it for better effect. It's new
user-experience rules can help you find and fix the usability issues
found on your website.
Usability recommendations
Google has recently updated the tool with some new recommendations, a summary of which is given below.
1. Viewport
Without a meta-view port tag, modern mobile browsers will assume your
page is not mobile-friendly, and will fall back to a desktop viewport
and possibly apply font-boosting, interfering with your intended page
layout. Configuring the view port to width=device-width should be your
first step in mobilizing your site. (More on the topic coming up, so
stay tuned!)
Size content to the view port: Users expect mobile sites to scroll
vertically, not horizontally. Once you've configured your view port, make
sure your page content fits the width of that view port, keeping in mind
that not all mobile devices are the same width.
2. Font sizes
Use legible font sizes: If users have to zoom in just to be able read
your article text on their smartphone screen, then your site isn't
mobile-friendly. Page Speed Insights checks that your site’s text is
large enough for most users to read comfortably.
3. Scale objects
Size tap targets appropriately: Nothing’s more frustrating than trying
to tap a button or link on a phone or tablet touchscreen, and
accidentally hitting the wrong one because your finger pad is much
bigger than a desktop mouse cursor. Make sure that your mobile site’s
touchscreen tap targets are large enough to press easily.
4. Avoid third-party plugins
Avoid plugins: Most smartphones don’t support Flash or other browser
plugins, so make sure your mobile site doesn't rely on plugins.