Modern Tools for the Digital Content Creator
A large number of tools exist to benchmark website page speeds. This post delves into the use of each and how website owners can benefit.
What tools does a Website Owner have to check and maintain the speed of their web pages?
This is a question which our team often hears and so we include the answer to this as a part of our #knowledgeseries .
Tools to test out website / page speeds are many, but can be broadly classified into:
- Testing Tools
- Reporting Tools
Testing tools focus on creating a replica of the environment in a lab kind of infrastructure. Once setup, multiple tests such as stress test, throughput test, etc. are performed to ensure there is no breakage in the system and the system can support the load expectations and guarantee the SLA requirements. This is primarily done by Developers of the Software, not by Content Creators. So in most cases the CMS / Publishing Software manufacturers ensure this SLA compliance to the load. There are well known tools such as JMeter, VSTS, etc. which come under this category. Content Creators dont need to worry about the general performance of the softwares, and so need not worry about these tools other than get assurances from their software / hosting provider that such tests have been performed.
Reporting Tools - Content Creators on the other hand, need to ensure that their content loads quickly and efficiently, so that customers do not bounce from their websites due to slowness. And this is the bigger problem many website owners struggle with. Reporting Tools help in countering this problem. Reporting tools include
- PageSpeed Insights
- CrUX (Chrome User Experience Report)
PageSpeed Insights is similar to the Google Chrome's LightHouse feature (https://developers.google.com/web/tools/lighthouse) except that it is focussed on Page Speed Aspect.
CrUX is a database of anonymously collected Website Page Loading information by consented participants. This is published on a monthly basis for the previous month, and allows website owners to check history of their page speeds for their websites. (Read our post on this database).
Acknowlegements:
- Photo by Hunter Haley on Unsplash
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