Mobile Page Speed Tests : Why It Matters

Table of Contents

The page speed of a mobile website plays a vital role in delivering a positive user experience for mobile users. According to research by Statista, mobile web traffic contributes 52.3% of global web traffic. That’s more than half of global web traffic, and the numbers are still predicted to grow.

Unarguably, mobile devices have become an integral part of the digital world. As the number above shows, people spend more time on mobile devices as compared to desktops. As a result, tech giants like Google have been re-calibrating their approach to search engines with a mobile-first mindset.

Website owners must specifically focus on the performance of their websites on mobile devices. Having a mobile responsive website with well-optimized page speed is integral to gaining any kind of success in the digital realm.

Hence, the best practice website owners can incorporate is boosting website speed, particularly for mobile devices. Every user expects web pages to load at lightning speed regardless of the website they visit. If it doesn’t, it will inevitably lead to a considerable loss of visitor traffic, which usually results in loss of potential revenue for businesses.

This leads us to an important question – How fast should my website be?

According to research by Google, 40% of users abandon a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load. Google’s computing model, trained with neural networking capabilities with a 90% accuracy rate, has offered the following conclusions:

Image source: Google

Subconsciously, no user likes to wait more than 2-3 seconds and the image above is proof. Notice how even a barely perceptible delay can adversely affect a website’s traffic.

It’s also vital to bear in mind that Google considers website speed before ranking any website.

So, if a website is not well optimized in terms of speed, particularly for mobile devices, it may lead to a considerable loss in visibility and traffic.

How to conduct a mobile page speed test?

Before making an optimization effort to boost website page speed, one has to test website speed on various web browsers and devices. Now, instead of running the site on multiple devices and browsers, simply use an online tool like SpeedLab by BrowserStack.

To test website speed, go through two steps:

Visit SpeedLab
Enter the URL of any website and click on Start

It instantly generates detailed test reports and evaluates score out of 100 for both mobile and desktop platforms. Most importantly, all tests are executed on real devices and browsers.

As these tests are conducted across a range of real device-browsers (e.g., Safari on iPhone X, Galaxy S10 on Chrome) hosted on BrowserStack’s real device cloud, it provides accurate results for both – Page-Load and Browser-Processing speed in milliseconds (refer to the image above).

Teams can use this report to identify if there is any room for improvement of page speed for a specific device or browser.

Check Scores for your Website Now

Web developers need to ensure that they are using responsive design for their website. Doing this allows websites to adapt to different screen sizes without disturbing visual experience. Users can use a responsive checker to evaluate how well the website renders across a range of devices with unique screen sizes and resolutions.

Apart from this, teams need to incorporate basic techniques like caching, compression, image optimizations, etc. to boost their site speed for both mobile and desktop platforms.

Bear in mind that website speed is not a factor to be overlooked, especially for mobile users. The mobile landscape is here to stay and will continue to grow. Making mobile-friendly websites will not only enhance user experience but also improve visibility and rankings on Google search. Hence, development and testing teams have to keep the question of website speed at the forefront when calibrating websites for mobile devices.

Was this post useful?

Yes, Thanks Not Really