How to Generate Site Speed Report?
Website speed is essential when running an online shop with WooCommerce or a personal blog. And as you know, the site’s speed is crucial regarding search engine ranking. There are several tools available for testing the speed of a website:
- GTmetrix
- Pingdom
- Google Page Speed Insights
But the downside is that we need to go to the target website, enter our domain manually, and perform the check every time. What if we can bring the speed testing feature to our WordPress dashboard?
This article will show you how to generate site speed reports using the MonsterInsights WordPress plugin and optimize everything.
Watch this video or scroll down to read the article further.
What Are Core Web Vitals?
From June 2021, Google will use the Core Web Vitals to determine the ranking of a website or a specific web page for a targeted keyword. You might already know that Google uses more than 200 factors in its search engine algorithm. So what are these new Core Web Vitals?
Its primary focus will be the page loading time when someone visits your website through mobile or desktop. The main focus is how fast the first page loaded, how long the server took to serve a stable page, how quickly it can interact with your page elements, etc. The Core Web Vitals currently tracks the following three metrics:
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
LCP stands for Largest Contentful Paint. This measures your loading time. As you can see above, you are doing great if you can achieve a score below 2.5 seconds! Lowest LCP = best user experience.
First Input Delay (FID)
FID stands for First Input Delay. FID measures interactivity. Below 100 milliseconds is a good score.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
CLS means Cumulative Layout Shift. In simple words, it measures visual stability. Therefore, to provide an excellent user experience, you must maintain 0.1 CLS every time.
We know what web vitals are, but how can we measure this data? Thankfully, many tools are available for measuring the web’s vital signals. Some of the valuable tools to find and verify core web vitals are:
- GTmetrix
- Google Page Speed Insights
- Chrome UX Report
- Search Console
- Chrome DevTools
- Lighthouse
- Web Vitals Extension
You can rely on any of those tools for checking. We can score better by improving our website’s speed and performance issues.
MonsterInsights
MonsterInsights is a freemium Google Analytics plugin for WordPress. It is developed by Awesome Motive, the company behind cutting-edge solutions like WPForms, OptinMonster, SeedProd, RafflePress, etc. The free version has basic tracking features like the top-performing pages, popular referrers, etc. And it can be downloaded from the WordPress plugins repository.
As you can see in the above screenshot, the plugin (MonsterInsights Lite) is used by more than 2 million WordPress blogs worldwide. When running a WooCommerce store or something that needs detailed tracking, the premium version of MonsterInsights is recommended.
Compared to other Google Analytics plugins in the market, MonsterInsights offers so many advanced and unique features. Some of the MonsterInsights features are:
- Scroll Depth Tracking
- File Download Tracking
- Affiliate Link Tracking
- Outbound Link Tracking
- Forms Tracking
- Author Tracking
- Custom Post types Tracking
- Tag Tracking
- Enhanced eCommerce Tracking
We have shared more about the premium version of MonsterInsights in our MonsterInsights review. You can check the article for more information.
How to Generate Site Speed Reports?
First, you must purchase the premium version of MonsterInsights for the site speed report feature.
We highly recommend purchasing their premium membership, which offers a more incredible feature. If you check their pricing page, you can see three premium pricing options.
- Plus – $99.50/ year
- Pro – $199.50/ year
- Agency – $399.50/ year
Higher plans will give you more unique features and more integration opportunities. Anyway, the Plus plan comes with all features a WordPress blog needs. Once you purchased your membership for the plugin using your PayPal account or credit card, you can log in to your MonsterInsights account to access the license and plugin files.
1) Generate Site Speed Report Using MonsterInsights
Now, let’s see how to generate the site speed report using the MonsterInsights plugin.
Total Time: 10 minutes
Install and Activate MonsterInsights Premium
After downloading the premium plugin files to your local computer, log in to your WordPress site. You can install and activate the plugin from the add new plugins section. Once you have activated the plugin, verify your license key.
From your MonsterInsights dashboard, you can fetch the license key. After verifying your license key, you’ll get access to all the MonsterInsights add-ons. Now, you’re ready to move forward.
Access Reports Section
First, go to the MonsterInsights reports section. There, you can see a new reporting section for site speed. You can generate site speed reports for your website using the site speed feature.
The plugin will show you the following:
An Overall Score
Server Response Time
First Contentful Paint
Total Blocking Time
Time To Interactive
Further, these stats are shown for mobile and desktop devices, which could be more helpful in understanding the results. Studies show that mobile traffic has dominated the internet compared to desktop and tablet searches.
You can Run an Audit whenever you want. On top of that, just like the standard MonsterInsights reports, you can export the speed insight as a PDF. Working as a freelancer or developer for a client comes in handy. Exporting data lets your clients know about the before and after changes.
Estimated Cost: 99.50 USD
Supply:
- Computer
- Internet connection
- WordPress.org website
Tools:
- MonsterInsights premium
The easiest way to load your WordPress blog fast is by using a WordPress caching plugin, compressing images using an image optimizer, using a lightweight theme, using a CDN, choosing a WordPress hosting optimized for performance, etc.
2) How to Check Website Speed Using Pingdom?
Pingdom is one of the popular tools available for testing a website’s speed. Thankfully, it allows us to check the URL’s exact rendering and performance issues we want to check. Once you’ve opened Pingdom, enter your website address below.
You’ll need to choose a speed test location from the dropdown list.
As you can see above, they have a wide range of test locations. You can choose any of them. In our case, we are good with the default location – North America – USA – Washington D.C. Click the start test button to run a speed test.
On the next page, the server will show you the results.
Below the result, you can also find recommendations to improve the speed.
You can check these recommendations to score better.
3) Generate Site Speed Using Google PageSpeed Insights
PageSpeed Insights is Google’s own tool for testing website speed. As usual, enter the domain name and run the test.
On the next page, the system will show you the test results.
Thankfully, the tool will show you results on both mobile and desktop. In addition, you can check the recommendations from the same page.
4) How to Check Website Speed Using GTmetrix?
First, head over to GTmetrix. All you need to do here is, enter the domain name for which you want to run the speed test.
And then click on Analyze button. GTmetix will start analyzing your website.
You’ll view the complete speed report within a few seconds, something like this.
Thousands of bloggers and professionals are using GTmetrix every day. So in some cases of a high queue, you may see a delay in analyzing your website and generating a speed report. The best thing you can do then is, create a GTmetrix account. Account holders will get a priority speed test. Once you have logged in to your GTmetrix account, you can run unlimited speed tests without waiting.
Conclusion
As we mentioned initially, site speed is vital for conversions and ranking. If you aren’t paying enough attention to the performance of your store/ blog, then you’re wasting your efforts.
Without additional tools or services, you can check your website’s speed using the MonsterInsights WordPress plugin. Along with other traffic reports from Google Analytics, you can quickly start generating your site speed reports in no time.
Buy MonsterInsights
If you plan to get the premium version of MonsterInsights, use our affiliate link below.
$This is an affiliate link
Frequently Asked Questions
Some of the most common questions regarding MonsterInsights and the site speed are:
Can We Use the Free Version of MonsterInsights for the Speed Test?
No. The site speed reports come with only the premium version of MonsterInsights. You must purchase the pro version plugin for generating the site speed reports.
Why Checking Website Speed Is Important?
Google is using website speed as a ranking factor. So if you need to rank higher on search engines, you might want to consider optimizing your site for speed.
Why MonsterInsights Is Recommended?
If you check the other methods mentioned in the article, you can see that we rely on other websites. However, with MonsterInisghts, we can narrow our performance right within our WordPress dashboard.
Conclusion
Website speed is no more optional.
You should optimize the server if you need to rank your content higher than your competitors. As you can see above, four simple methods exist to check the server’s performance.
MonsterInsights is simple and doesn’t require any additional skills to use it.
We hope you’ve enjoyed the read and learned how to generate site speed reports using MonsterInsights. Please consider sharing this post with your friends and fellow bloggers on social media if you do.
For more WordPress theme reviews, plugin reviews, and tutorials, please check out our WordPress archives section.
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dhaval says
Thanks for sharing this article with us. I was searching for generating reports and finding tools for the same. his article was so helpful
Nirmal Kumar says
Thank you so much Dhaval, I’m glad to hear that you were able to generate some site reports for your website.