With over half of all website visits now occurring on mobile devices, site speed continues to be one of the biggest factors leading to a good mobile experience. In this post, we’ll cover how site speed is measured and some of the website properties that can affect it.According to Google, 53% of people will abandon a mobile website if a page takes longer than 3 seconds to load; Google’s data shows that the average automotive website in the US takes 9 seconds* to load.*It’s important to note that Google’s page speeds are based on a globally-representative 3G connection; in the US more than 80% of people had access to 4G connection speeds in 2016, which is 3-7x’s faster than 3G.There are three metrics that are used to measure page size and speed:

1. Page load time
2. Page weight, measured in kilobytes or megabytes: the average for a US automotive site is 2.1 MB (Google best practice: 1 MB)
3. Number of requests: the average for a US automotive website is 119 (Google best practice: <100)

There are many technical tasks that are effective at reducing page size and speed. These include:

• Cleaning up the code to minimize HTML, CSS and Javascript file size
• Compression of files, scripts, and images
• Browser-caching
• Fully loading visible, above-the-fold content first by ensuring the right files and scripts load at the appropriate times

That might seem complicated, and in many cases, it can be. This is particularly true if you’re working with a templated website from a vendor like Dealer.com or CDK Global. Luckily, you can still optimize your site speed without worrying about caching, compression and coding.In part two of this series, we’ll cover two of the factors that Google indicates are most important for an effective mobile site and how we can use this to speed up your site’s mobile experience.