GTMetrix is a popular speed testing tool that helps measure and report on many aspects of website performance. GTMetrix, developed by GT.net, based in Canada, is used in conjunction with Pingdom and Google PageSpeed Insights. This software, which effectively helps SEO efforts to improve the website, increase site speed and therefore site traffic, is considered one of the important tools in this field.
GTMetrix, which helps to analyze websites and perform optimizations in accordance with SEO studies, offers some basic features free of charge to its users. However, there are also paid packages rated for users who prefer services such as hourly URL tracking, fast analytics, additional API access and white-label PDF reports.
How to Use GTMetrix?
Using GTMetrix, you can view a summary of site performance on an individual page basis and identify pages that need to be optimized. It is also possible to access charts and graphs that provide information about the size of the pages, loading time, number of user requests and performance comparison, as well as analysis of the images on the pages. GTMetrix is extremely simple and easy to use. It can also be used on WordPress websites. To use GTMetrix, simply follow the instructions below.
- To start a free scan on the GTMetrix website, enter the full URL of the website in the search bar and click on the “Test your site” button on the side of the search bar. This starts the scanning process.
- A new screen opens as soon as the scan is started. Browser and server information is displayed on the loading screen.
- After the screening process is completed in a short time, the report page is published. This page published by the GTMetrix website reports the reload score, overall speed score, total page size, time to fully load, and the total number of queries for the queried site.
GTMetrix, which puts websites through a rigorous test in terms of performance, reports the analysis as PRIORITY and TYPE. The TYPE field specifies what the performance values are related to and the PRIORITY field specifies the importance scale. Even in the free version, this speed measurement tool offers a detailed report and can be used by anyone.
GTMetrix also makes it extremely easy for WordPress website users. WordPress users can download a full-fledged plugin for content management that is simple to install. API key and account e-mail address are sufficient for this. Before any changes, GTMetrix recommends an initial test or tests to ensure that site speed can be achieved. After collecting the required data, it is recommended to install the W3 Total Cache plugin if it is not already installed. Because W3 Total Cache caches the website and focuses on WordPress optimization. After this plugin it is recommended to install the GTMetrix WP Smush plugin. GTMetrix WP Smush is an image optimization plugin. Although it is not a widely used plugin like W3 Total Cache, it is useful to have it installed. This is because this plugin offers compression without any loss to handle PNG, JPEG and GIF images, as well as new images uploaded to the WordPress installation. This plugin compresses even large images to 1 MB or less. After installing and configuring these two plugins, GTMetrix requests another speed test. The test results are surprisingly good.
What are the Advantages of GTMetrix?
The advantages of using the GTMetrix speed test tool can be summarized as follows:
- Lists the factors of analysis.
- It offers the opportunity to test websites from different locations.
- It reports slow loading pages on the site, as well as the reasons for slow loading and how to fix them.
- Allows in-site editing.
- Thanks to the graphic presented in green, yellow and red colors, it clearly indicates the areas of the site with high performance, areas that need to be improved and areas that need to be edited.
- It scores the content in each area of the website for quality, visual size and originality.
Site speed significantly affects user experience and ranking in search engines’ results lists. Sites that open slowly are both quickly abandoned by users and not visited again. It also ranks low in the result lists of search engines. These two situations negatively affect site traffic. It is important to test with GTMetrix how useful SEO efforts to increase the speed and traffic of websites are or which efforts need to be improved. Because optimizations can be made in the most ideal way thanks to these tests.
How to Improve Website Performance with GTMetrix?
In order to increase the GTMetrix score and improve site performance, it is recommended to adjust according to some of the points mentioned below.
Image Optimization
High resolution images consume a lot of bandwidth, slowing down the site and increasing loading time. GTMetrix makes it easy to identify which images need to be optimized.
CCS File Optimization
By minimizing the CCS file, unnecessary duplicates, spaces and characters can be eliminated. This file size reduction helps improve site performance.
Web Performance Monitoring
Monitoring the performance of the website is important to identify which areas need improvement. This is why site performance should be monitored regularly with GTMetrix and other tools.
