If you're looking to increase your WordPress site loading speed, you first need to know how fast it's already running. Then you can calculate and compare your WordPress website's speed with an earlier version.
Notably, you should be aware of the contemporary speed of your website to take additional action to increase it any further. A WordPress speed test will provide you all the details you need to proceed afterward.
Why Is the WordPress Speed Test important?
Most web visitors hate slow-loading websites. On average, a website shouldn't take more than three seconds to load. Users avoid similar websites because of poor loading speed. In this decade, there is no acceptance for a slow-loading website.
You should know whether your WordPress website is one of those slow-loading websites. Unless you find out the exact speed of your website, you can't help it. Therefore, you need to run a WordPress speed test to diagnose the speed of your website.
Best WordPress Speed Test Tools for WordPress
There is an abundance of WordPress speed test tools for you to utilize. Each has its significant way of running speed tests and providing speed analytics. But rather than trying each of them blindly, you should use the most efficient WordPress speed test tool for you.
Here we've gathered the 7 best WordPress speed test tools for you:
1. Google PageSpeed Insights
PageSpeed Insights is an open-source service developed by Google to run speed and performance tests for your website. It's simple to use and can run tests for both mobile and desktop under different parameters.
The site insights results are divided into a few parts: Field Data, Lab Data, Opportunities, Diagnostics, and Passed audits. For example, in the field data, FCP (First Contentful Paint) means content loading time on the page, FID (First Input Delay) indicates the page's responsiveness.
The Opportunities suggest scope for improvement, Diagnostics indicate different issues that need improvement, and Passed Audits inform you of areas you're doing well on.
When a Google service is giving you insights about your website, you should take them seriously. That's because most of your visitors will search on Google, and Google controls the search ranking.
2. GTmetrix Speed Test
GTmetrix is one of the most popular WordPress speed test tools because of its detailed observations and performance report. Considering the usability and the quality of information, it's worth using.
GTmetrix has a grading system for websites according to their performance which comes first. Your website gets a grade, and then comes the web vitals with details.
There are different sections with detailed information for Summary, Performance, Structure, Waterfall, Video, history will all the details, and top issues to fix.
3. Pingdom Speed Test
Pingdom is one of the most popular WordPress speed test tools. With the ability to test WordPress speed from 7 different servers and 70 global locations to make it a beneficial one for users all over the globe.
It offers smooth usability alongside in-depth performance insights. There's also a grading system to see your website's position among other global websites regarding loading speed and performance.
Pingdom provides you the aspects to improve the Page Performance (DNS lookups, Expires headers, HTTP requests, URL redirects, etc. It also informs you about the sizes of your different Content types (Image, Script, HTML, Font, XHR). Moreover, it indicates your response codes.
4. WebPageTest
WebPageTest is a professional site speed testing tool that provides you with your website's most in-depth information and speed metrics.
Initially, you can set the test type from 4 different speed test categories (Advanced testing, Simple, Visual Comparison, Traceroute). The system runs the speed test 3 times and then displays the information with waterfall view, screenshot and a slow-motion load time video.
WebPageTest displays your website speed analytics in different categories like Summary, Details, Performance, Content, Domains, Image Analysis. As a result, you get to know the current status and performance of different portions of your website.
5. KeyCDN Website Speed Test
KeyCDN website performance speed test can perform a speed test on your website from 10 different locations from all over the globe. You can also use this tool as a performance checker for your website.
The website speed test tool offers you different gradings to show the speed performance of various website components. These results also suggest you take the necessary steps regarding the issues.
Moreover, you get the pie chart of the speed metrics and the details and performance of the different pages of your website. Each of these page speed results includes the page loading time, size, and status.
6. Uptrends Website Speed Test
Uptrends website speed test tool allows you to test your website speed on different browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Phantoms JS) and different internet connections (Native, ADSL, Fiber, Cable) considering the diversity of visitors from all over the globe.
Firstly you get an overview of the performance of your website along with Google PageSpeed score along with the total load time, home page size, the requests needed, and the types of connection you're using.
Secondly, you get the performance improvements analytics where the tool suggests the sectors you need to improve to achieve a better speed on your website.
Lastly, you get the request for Waterfall metrics of your website. Also, you get tables and charts for the object types, object bytes, etc.
7. Yellow Lab Tools
The Yellow Lab Tools is one of the newest yet smartest editions in the website speed testing world. It can test your website speed along with Page speed audit and Front-end analysis. You get very in-depth metrics for better understanding.
Initially, the website speed test plugin shows a Global score of your website. Later, you get detailed information about different components and their performance of various aspects like Page weight, Requests, DOM complexity, JS Complexity, JQuery CSS, Fonts, etc. All of these options contain detailed data to help your website perform faster.
What Speed Is a Great WordPress Website Speed?
Generally, the websites that take less than 3 seconds to load are considered great websites. Although, in technical terms, there hasn't been any standard that exactly defines an ideal website loading time.
If the users have a smooth browsing experience without any interruptions or lag, that speed is the ideal speed from regular users' perspective.
If you're looking to squeeze even more speed out of your WordPress website, you can choose and install a WordPress speed optimization plugin.