New Google Tool – How To Speed Up Your Blog Pages

Google loves speed. And in what is win-win scenario for all bloggers and for Google, they have released a new page speed testing and tweaking tool. And you can get it for free.

Why does Google love speed? Think about it. Google relies on gathering information from every relevant page on the web, as often as possible and and as quickly as possible. The quicker they can perform the search for each page, the nearer they get to the holy grail of “real-time” search.

The quicker Google can complete the routine indexing of every web page that they need to, the more efficient their system is, the less resources they use, and the more money they save.

With the other “real-time” search providers – such as Twitter Search and Collecta angling to hook some of Google’s hallowed users, Google is pushing very hard to keep up with these upstarts.

Why do we love speed? Here it is a double love. On the one hand we want to impress Google so that we can appear on Google’s page one for organic search for our keywords. If our page or pages load slowly, we get a black mark in Google’s homework book which negatively effects our Page Rank (not good!).

On the other hand if our pages load slowly, our real, breathing, coffee drinking page visitors will often click away often before our funky page even loads. As I stress in my Social Media Guide for Business, social media is for real people and not just to schmooz and impress Google.

Different to other page speed tools?

1. Google presumably uses their own tool’s metrics to rate your site, so you’ll be comparing apples with apples in your page speed results and optimization.
2. Google offers a solution to poor speed results – and ways for you to speed up those sluggish pages that are keeping your blog in the bog. Cool.

How do I get speed if I aint got it?

The tool requires Firefox and here’s what you do to get it working. Download and install the following:

1. Google’s pages speed tool (BETA with closure compiler – Windows only).

2. Firefox version 3.5 or higher

3. Firebug Firefox Add-on

4. Java plugin for Firefox

Follow the step by step instructions on running your first test and get yourself in the driving seat and get your blog into the fast lane.