What is Page Speed? 

Page speed refers to how quickly the content on a web page is loaded and displayed to users. It is often measured in seconds or milliseconds. Page speed can influence both user experience (UX) and SEO performance and as such, optimizing it is crucial for maintaining a high-quality website.

The Importance of Page Speed

Critical Factors Affecting Page Load Speed in HubSpot CMS

• Compression: Use image compression tools to reduce file sizes without sacrificing quality.
• Responsive Images: HubSpot CMS provides responsive images, which automatically adjusts the size of images based on the device.
• WebP Format: Opt for modern image formats like WebP, which offer superior compression and quality.

• Minification: Minify both CSS and JavaScript files to remove unnecessary spaces, comments, and characters.
• Bundling: Bundle multiple CSS/JS files into one to reduce HTTP requests.
• Async and Deferred Loading: Ensure non-essential JavaScript files load asynchronously or are deferred to improve initial rendering time.

• HubSpot's CDN: HubSpot leverages a content delivery network (CDN), which distributes your content to global servers, improving server response time by delivering content from the nearest server.
• Reduce Redirects: Excessive redirects can slow down load times. Simplify the URL structure to reduce the number of redirects.

• Combine CSS and JS Files: Combine smaller files into one larger file to minimize requests.
• Remove Unnecessary Third-Party Scripts: Evaluate the use of external services like ads, analytics, and social media embeds, as these can add considerable load time.
• Leverage Browser Caching: Set expiration dates on static resources like images, CSS, and JS so they are cached in the user’s browser for future visits, reducing load time on repeat visits.

Critical Factors Affecting Page Load Speed in HubSpot CMS:

• Built-in Image Optimization Tools: HubSpot offers built-in tools to resize, crop, and optimize images. Make sure your images are not larger than                  necessary and are appropriately compressed before uploading.
• Automatic Image Resizing: HubSpot CMS automatically serves responsive images based on the device’s screen size, ensuring the smallest file size is        served

• CSS and JS Minification and Bundling in HubSpot: Utilize HubSpot’s tools to manage and optimize the loading of JavaScript and CSS files.
• Use HubSpot's Code Editor: You can directly modify or create custom CSS/JS files in HubSpot's Design Manager and use the built-in tools for minification.

• HubSpot automatically integrates a content delivery network (CDN) into its platform, which caches website content in multiple servers around the world. This ensures that users access data from the nearest server, significantly improving page load speed.

4. Leveraging Chrome Lighthouse Scores:

•  What is Lighthouse? Lighthouse is an open-source, automated tool for improving the quality of web pages. It audits performance, accessibility, best practices, and SEO.  
• How to Access Lighthouse: In Chrome DevTools (right-click on your page, "Inspect"), go to the "Lighthouse" panel.  
• Running a Lighthouse Audit: Select the categories you want to audit (Performance is key for page speed) and click "Generate report."
• Interpreting Lighthouse Scores: Lighthouse provides a score out of 100 for each category, along with detailed recommendations for improvement. Pay close attention to the "Performance" score and its related metrics (e.g., First Contentful Paint, Speed Index, Largest Contentful Paint, Cumulative Layout Shift).  
• Using Lighthouse Recommendations: Lighthouse provides specific, actionable advice on how to improve your page speed. Address the issues highlighted in the report to optimize your website's performance. This might include optimizing images, minifying CSS/JS, improving server response time, and more.

• HubSpot provides built-in performance analysis tools. Regularly monitor the Performance tab in the HubSpot Page Editor to understand page load times.
• Google PageSpeed Insights is also an excellent external tool to analyze website speed and provide actionable feedback for improvements.

Best Practices for Mobile Optimization

Measuring and Monitoring Page Speed

Google PageSpeed Insights: Google PageSpeed Insights (PSI) is a free tool that analyzes web page performance on both mobile and desktop devices. It provides a score (0-100) based on Core Web Vitals and other speed-related metrics, along with recommendations to optimize loading speed and user experience

How to Use Google PageSpeed Insights?

• Visit PageSpeed Insights.
• Enter your website URL in the search bar and click "Analyze."
• Review your page’s performance score (0-49 = Poor, 50-89 = Needs Improvement, 90-100 = Good).
• Check detailed metrics under "Lab Data" and "Field Data."
• Follow recommendations in the "Opportunities" and "Diagnostics" sections to improve speed.

Google Lighthouse: Google Lighthouse is an open-source tool that helps developers analyze and improve website performance, accessibility, SEO, and best practices. It provides a detailed audit and actionable recommendations to enhance web page quality.

How to Run a Lighthouse Audit on Your HubSpot Website:

• Open Google Chrome and go to your HubSpot website.
• Right-click anywhere on the page and select Inspect.
• Click on the Lighthouse tab in DevTools.
• Select the audit categories: Performance, Accessibility, SEO, Best Practices and PWA.
• Click Generate Report and analyze the results.
  

Key Metrics to Monitor

• First Contentful Paint (FCP): Time taken for the first piece of content to appear.
• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Measures when the largest content element is loaded.
• Time to Interactive (TTI): When the page is fully interactive.
• Total Blocking Time (TBT): Time the page was blocked from user interaction due to JavaScript execution.

   

Conclusion

Optimising page speed in HubSpot CMS is an ongoing process that involves implementing best practices for image compression, script optimisation, server response time, and HTTP request reduction. Regular monitoring, analysis, and using HubSpot’s built-in tools can help maintain fast-loading pages, leading to improved user experience, better SEO rankings, and higher conversion rates.

Resources and Tools

• Google PageSpeed Insights: Link
• HubSpot CMS Performance Tools: Link