Dealers will frequently ask for speed tests to be done on their sites, or do their own tests and ask for our feedback and help implementing changes that will improve their score. This article will help you run a speed test, respond to dealer concerns, and present your recommendations to the dealer for how to resolve some common issues.
Running A Speed Test
Even if the dealer provides us with a speed test they’ve already run, it is best practice to run one of our own. It is not uncommon for third parties and marketing services to run a test or present the dealer with falsified information to make their services seem more needed. Additionally, dealers often don’t know what parts of the test to attach/include to show us the whole picture or what items are specifically causing an issue.
GTMetrix is what we use to run speed tests. You will need to sign up for a free account to use it.
On the GTMetrix site, it will prompt you for the URL of the site. Paste the URL into the box and let it run.
Once the test has run, the results will be provided in multiple categories, which will be explained in more detail below.
Reading A Speed Test
Once the test has run, you will be provided with a lot of information, so let’s break down what is most important to look at.
Dealers will frequently look at their final “grade” and get upset, without understanding the context behind the score, or what can be done to improve it. However, once we’ve run this test, we can look at a variety of factors that the test tells us about.
Render-blocking resources
This tends to be the most “negative” category on tests of our sites. However, there are some elements on this list that we can not remove/change, and some items that speed tests will flag despite not actually preventing the site from loading.
This list contains the following:
Our global CSS file
The fonts used on the site
Bootstrap
Font Awesome
The dealer’s CSS file
JQuery
Modernizr
Drive It Now
Qualify Wizard
The dealer’s home scripts
Supplemental jQuery
You can see on the right hand side, each item has a “download time” that indicates how long each item took to download when loading the site. Items that are listed in milliseconds are typically not a concern – most users will not see an improvement between milliseconds. However, we can take a look at the items that are taking more than 1 second to load to see if we can do anything about them.
3 of these items are integral parts of the site we cannot remove (Bootstrap, CSS, jQuery). However, one of these items is QualifyWizard, which is a third party (which we will get into more in the third party script section). We should note this down while reading through the report to come back to when making our recommendations.
It’s also worth noting that although the rating for this section is “high”, the actual download time is not that high. Most customers will not notice or complain about a site taking 2-3 seconds to load. However, there are some small things you can check for the items that we cannot remove – for example, if you notice that their CSS has a lot of custom CSS in it that is commented out/no longer necessary, you could potentially take this opportunity to clean it up and make it smaller to reduce load time.
Images
Speed tests often reveal that there are some large images on the site that are causing the site to load slower than normal. If a dealer is uploading their own images, they often do not think to size down or compress their images before putting them on the site. This can lead to some situations where images are flagged for being especially large or troublesome. In those scenarios, we should find the top handful of images that are being flagged and compress them (using TinyPNG or another similar service) for the dealer and re-upload during the process of the speed test. We should also avoid using PNGs at all unless the element needs to be transparent.
Once you’ve replaced the images with the new compressed versions, run the test again to see the improvement. Make sure you’ve noted which images you changed out in order to appropriately fill out your recommendations to the dealer (i.e., if the images they are uploading for their image rotator on the homepage are all too large, you’ll want to make sure you advise them to use a specific size/compress their banner images before uploading).
Third-party scripts/code
One of the most common causes for a noticeable slowdown on a dealer site is that they are utilizing too many third party scripts. Dealers often do not understand that implementing multiple products that are not intended to be a part of the site can cause issues. Because of this, it’s important to identify which third party scripts are causing the most slowdown, and encourage the dealer to weigh the slowdown of each one against the benefits they receive from using them. You may also find Google Tag Manager codes when searching through these lists – dealers may be using these containers to run additional scripts, which can slow the site down as well.
CLS issues
Coming soon
Making Recommendations
Once you’ve read through the report and understand the major issues, it’s time to let the dealer know what you recommend (or what you may have already fixed) in order to improve their score.
Some dealers are expecting more of a lengthy, comprehensive report – in which case, you can use this handy template to write up what your recommendations are.
Other dealers may just be looking for advice on a particular matter, or may have some idea of where the issue lies and want a confirmation. In that scenario, you don’t necessarily need to write up a full report – you can just let the AM/Support know what issues you saw/fixed in a more informal manner.
Assistance Expectations
Coming soon!