Website speed performance report with Google Analytics and Data Studio

Do you use Pingdom, Google Speed Insights, Web.dev, or GTmetrix to measure your website speed and performance? 

While they are fantastic tools, they come with some limitations because they only give a single score and an overall un-insightful average.

Consider that all website speed measurement tools come with limitations; some assume all users internet connection is on fiber; others, like Google Analytics, only take a small sample of traffic; others give just an overall average so they don’t give a context.

With our Google Data Studio template, you will be able to break down speed metrics into pages, countries, devices, and browsers to granularly understand where you should optimize your performance efforts, all along with industry benchmarks to set specific goals.  

Speed performance metrics

• Avg. Page load time: this metric sums all other metrics as it counts when a user clicks on a link and ends when a web page is fully loaded in the browser. This is the first metric you should see to gauge your website’s overall performance. 
• Avg. Page download time: the page download time represents how much it takes the HTML DOM to load fully, but we’re still missing images, stylesheets, and other elements.
• Avg. Document Content Loaded Time (sec): this metric represents when a web page’s content has fully loaded.
• Avg. Document Interactive Time (sec): The Document Interactive Time is the time it takes a page to load something a user can start interacting with, even though the page hasn’t fully loaded. 
• Avg. Server Response Time (sec): this metric measures the time it takes a server to respond to a user action. It would help if you considered a CDN as the distance between your website servers and a user matters.
• Avg. Server Connection Time (sec): along with the Avg. Domain Time, this metric should be the shortest. It measures the time it takes from a domain IP to a device IP address.
• Avg. Domain Lookup Time (sec): the Domain Lookup Time is the time a user’s browser takes to find your domain IP. If it’s slow, you should check your hosting provider.
• Avg. Redirection Time (sec): the redirection time is the beginning of the navigation experience; it gauges how much time take redirections when loading a new page. If you have no redirections, the value should be zero.

Dimensions and breakdowns

• Page title: no tall pages have the same content and images. Quickly identify which of them are taking the longest to load and optimize them.
• Browser: old browsers can affect speed. It’s good to check which browsers your visitors are using. 
• Country: if you don’t use a CDN, you may affect the experience of those users whose location is far from your website servers. 
• Device Category: mobile devices and tablets have slower processors and different CSS rules; that’s why Google Speed Insights gives a separate score for desktop and mobile.

How to use this report

• Instantly understand which speed metrics are underperforming. 
• We added reference values and benchmarks to help you quickly visualize the optimal amount each metric should have.
• Get a better context with all the historical data available on your Google Analytics account. 
• Identify top underperforming devices, countries, pages, and browsers. 
• We added the sample data Google Analytics takes from your site to calculate speed metrics; it’s generally around 1% of your traffic.