Introduction

If you’re looking to improve your WordPress website speed, there are many metrics you can use to measure how fast or slow it is. To make things easier, I’ve outlined the most important ones below.

Understanding WordPress Website Loading Speed Metrics and How to Improve Them

• Website speed is a ranking factor.
• Website speed affects user experience.
• Website speed affects bounce rate and conversion rate, which in turn affect search engine rankings.

What is WordPress Website Speed?

Speed is an important factor in the user experience and ranking of your website. The speed at which your website loads will affect how people perceive it, and it can have a significant impact on both search engine rankings and user engagement.

For example, Google has confirmed that site speed is a ranking factor in its algorithm–meaning that if you want to rank well on Google search results pages (SERPs) then you should focus on improving the performance of your site. Additionally, slow websites turn people away because they don’t provide what they need quickly enough; if they feel like their time has been wasted by waiting around for pages to load then they’ll leave without engaging with any content or purchasing anything from an e-commerce store’s landing page.

Why is Website Speed so important?

Website speed is important because it affects your visitors’ experience. If a website takes too long to load, they will leave and search for another website instead. This can be costly, as you’ll lose out on sales and customers who may have been interested in your product or service but were put off by slow loading times.

Website speed also affects SEO rankings—if you don’t rank well, then no one will find you when they’re looking for something like ” WordPress website builder tool”. And if no one finds your site when searching for information about it (or worse yet, if other search results are better), then that means less traffic for everyone involved!

Finally, slow websites tend to have higher bounce rates and lower conversion rates (meaning fewer sales) than faster ones do; this makes sense because people are more likely to give up on something that takes too long before they get any value out of it–especially since there aren’t many additional benefits beyond convenience when using such technologies anyway!

How does a Website Load?

A WordPress website loads in the browser by following a series of steps. It’s important to understand these steps so you can identify where problems may be occurring, and how you can fix them.

The user clicks on a link (or enters your site’s URL) to load a page on their browser. The browser then requests the HTML code for that page from your server. When it gets this information back from your server, it will parse through it and display what looks like plain text but is actually formatted HTML code with formatting tags such as or .

First Contentful Paint (FCP)

First Contentful Paint (FCP) is the time from when a user first clicks on a link or button to when the browser renders something on the screen. FCP is important because it affects the user experience, which can lead to lower bounce rates and higher engagement for your site.

To measure FCP you need to use Google Chrome DevTools or another browser’s developer tools to see how long it takes for HTML elements in your page to be displayed:

Time to Interactive (TTI)

The Time to Interactive (TTI) is the time it takes for a page to become interactive. This metric measures how quickly users can interact with your website after they’ve loaded it. It’s important because if pages are slow to load, then users may get frustrated and leave before ever getting any value from them.

• An interactive page is one that responds to user input–so if you want someone who visits your site to be able to search through products or read articles, this metric would tell you how long they have to wait before being able to do so.

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

The LCP is a metric that measures how long it takes for the browser to render your page. It’s important because it’s a good indicator of how quickly users can interact with your site and whether they feel like they’re getting what they need from it. The longer this takes, the less likely they will be able to complete their task as quickly as possible.

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) is a measurement of how much content has been downloaded, and how much of it has been rendered. It’s the total number of bytes needed to render the page, including HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

This metric can be broken down into two separate components:

• Content Loaded – This refers to when all of your HTML has been received by the browser so that you can start laying out your page visually in preparation for rendering
• Layout Complete – This refers to when all critical CSS has been loaded and applied to elements on your website’s pages

Conclusion

Outline: The 5 F’s of WordPress Speed Optimization

• Fast: Load time  (i.e. Static Content, No Caching)
• Fast: Database queries and PHP execution speed; this will affect how fast your website feels to use, how quickly pages load and overall the responsiveness of your site
• Faster: CSS and JavaScript execution speeds; this will affect the page perceived speed and how quickly content can be updated on a page across multiple devices
• Faster: Page rendering speed; this will affect how long it takes for users to see the changes they have made on their website in development (i.e. browser lag or delay). This is especially important for mobile devices when it comes to app compatibility issues on large websites with multiple plugins installed. The more complex your website is, the more important it is to monitor these metrics as well as other factors such as SSL performance (if enabled).
• Faster: Search engine friendly domain name and high quality content

Takeaway: As much as possible aim for low number “F’s” in each section above (Fast, Fast, fast), but keep in mind that slow loading times are not always due to poor hosting or slow hardware. Even though caching plugin settings are often used as a quick method of speeding up WordPress sites, caching can negatively affect SEO if used improperly – so make sure you’re testing each plugin you install thoroughly first! 

Contact us today if you still need some additional assistance with your WordPress loading speeds!