If your website was an animal, would what would it be? Hopefully a fast one, right? Australians have little tolerance for wombat speed websites. This is particularly true on mobile, where we expect a seamless experience whether searching or making purchases. Nine out of ten people will leave a mobile site if they can’t find what they’re looking for right away.1

If you are a business owner, think about what this means for your business’s site. Does it perform quickly on both desktop and mobile? If not, you’re probably losing customers while the pages slowly load.

A new Google tool allows you to measure your site’s performance across devices—from mobile to desktop. The tool will also give you a list of specific fixes that can help your business connect more quickly with people online.

You don’t need a lot of technical knowledge to understand the results. Just type in your web address and within moments you’ll see how your site scores. You can also get a detailed report to give you an idea of what to do next, and where to go for help.



Why you should test your site 
We all live online. When we need information or want to make a purchase, we grab the nearest device. On average, people check their phones more than 150 times a day.2 This is particularly true for Aussie millennials who are using their phones for everything - from comparing products to booking restaurants. But if a potential customer is on mobile and a site isn’t easy to use they won’t hang around. Almost 30 per cent of mobile users immediately switch to another site or app if it doesn’t satisfy their needs.

To avoid losing out in these moments, you need a site that loads quickly and is easy to use. The first step is seeing how your site is performing. You will get feedback on mobile-friendliness, mobile speed, and desktop speed. (By the way, if you’re a site guru, you may also want to visit PageSpeed Insights, which is the power behind the scores.)

What your scores say about your site

• Mobile-friendliness: This is the quality of the experience customers have when they’re browsing your site on their phones. To be mobile-friendly, your site should have tappable buttons, be easy to navigate from a small screen, and have the most important information up front and centre. 
• Mobile speed: This is how long it takes your site to load on mobile devices. If customers are kept waiting for too long, they’ll move on to the next site (picture a wombat racing against an emu). 
• Desktop speed: This is how long it takes your site to load on desktop computers. It’s not just the strength of your customers’ web connection that determines speed, but also the elements of your website (there goes that wombat again). 

Test your site now to find out what’s working and what’s not so you can make your site more emu, less wombat and enable your business to win on mobile.


Posted by Rich Flanagan, Head of Business Marketing, Google Australia


1. Consumers in the Micro-Moment, Wave 3, Google/Ipsos, U.S., August 2015, n=1291 online smartphone users 18+ 
2. Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, “Internet Trends D11 Conference.” May 2013