We have our own Validators and Tester for Real Estate SEO - Performance

1. Website Load Speed Performance Tester

What it is

Page Load Speed refers to the amount of time it takes to entirely load a webpage in a user's browser. Load speed is complex and can be impacted by a multitude of factors including network, web server, page size, technology, database or coding problems, and may require the help of a developer or systems administrator to troubleshoot. Page Load Speed impacts a user's experience on a website and can directly impact bounce rate and conversions. Additionally, Search Engines are making Page Load Speed a ranking factor.

How to fix it

Optimize Page Load Speed by examining common problem points such as overall file size, server resources or coding problems.

2. Webpage File Size Check Tool

What it is

Download Page Size refers to the total amount of file content that needs to be downloaded by the browser to view a particular webpage. This includes HTML, CSS, Javascript and Images, though can include a number of other file formats. Generally media files like images and videos are significantly larger than text files and make up the bulk of Download File Size, but also represent the largest optimization opportunity. An important distinction here is 'Download' vs 'Raw' file size. Modern web protocols compress files during transfer, meaning files are usually smaller to download than their actual or 'raw' size. So any manual optimizations you perform would be on the 'raw' file. Download Page Size is one of the biggest contributors to Page Load Speed, which can directly affect rankings, user experience and conversions.

How to fix it

It is important to ensure your Download File Size is as small as possible by removing unnecessary files and minifying and optimizing others. 5MB is a good metric to strive for, though modern websites are gradually increasing in size.

3. Page Request Checker Tool

What it is

When browsers display a modern website, they have to retrieve a wide variety of files including HTML, CSS, Javascript, Images and other media. As a general rule, every file that needs to be retrieved is another network request that needs to be made by the browser to the server, which can each face some connection overhead and add to Page Load Time.

How to fix it

It is a good idea to remove unnecessary files or consolidate smaller files with similar content like styles and scripts where possible to optimize performance.

4. Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) Tester

What it is

AMP or Accelerated Mobile Pages, was an initiative originally created by Google to help mobile pages load faster through adherence to a specific set of requirements. Some research demonstrated that AMP enabled pages would receive a ranking benefit. AMP has often been criticized and begun to be deprecated by particular browsers and frameworks.

5. Webpage Javascript Error Checking Tool

What it is

JavaScript is embedded code on a webpage that can perform any number of functions such as modifying page elements dynamically, or making calls to retrieve information live without refreshing the page. JavaScript is a staple of the modern web and used on almost every modern website. However, with increasing usage and complexity, Javascript can fail on a page due to coding problems, incorrect versions or loading issues. Sometimes failures can interrupt proper execution of a page and break other functions, and so Javascript errors should generally be examined to understand the cause and what it's impacts are .

6. Webpage GZIP Test Tool

What it is

Modern web servers allow website files to be compressed as part of their transfer, often dramatically reducing the Download File Size and Page Load Speed of a page. There are several different compression algorithms used such as GZIP, Deflate and Brotli. Enabling compression can often represent a simple and quick win to performance, and most new web servers will have this enabled by default.

How to fix it

You should ensure that compression is enabled and working effectively on your web server. Sometimes compression may only be partially enabled for particular file types, or using an older compression method, so it is important to understand whether your server is configured as efficiently as possible. This may require the help of a developer to investigate.

7. HTTP2 Usage

What it is

HTTP is a technology protocol used by web browser to communicate with websites and is a cornerstone of the world wide web. HTTP/2 (and above) are newer versions of the HTTP protocol that offer significant peformance improvements. Older websites may be set to using an older HTTP protocol despite their web servers having been upgraded to support newer versions.

How to fix it

It is worth reviewing whether your website is configured to use the latest available HTTP protocol as it can provide immediate Page Load Speed improvements.

8. Webpage Image Optimization Checker

What it is

Image and media files in general tend to be the largest component of file size on most modern webpages. File size can directly impact how quickly a page loads, and subsequently the quality of the experience for users. Images in general can have a large range in how much they can be optimized. For example, a high quality photograph downloaded from a camera could be 16MB, but using a reasonable level of size reduction and optimization could comfortably reduce it to 150KB without a noticeable amount of quality loss.

How to fix it

Review the images used on your site, starting from the largest in file size to determine if there are optimization opportunities. You can use common image editing tools like Photoshop or even free online compression tools to optimize them.

9. Webpage File Minification Checker

What it is

Minification is a procedure run on code text files that can reduce the text size by removing white space and substituting common values or names with shorter versions. Minification also offers the additional value of making code much harder to read and reverse engineer by third parties. It is best practice to minify any exposed JS and CSS Files before publishing them to a live site.

How to fix it

Minification can be done automatically through some development tools and website build procedures, or through minification CMS Plugins, or manually through minification tools available online.

10. Deprecated HTML Tags Checker

What it is

HTML, like most coding languages, has had improvements made over time that has removed older features, either due to them simply being problematic, or more often replaced with something better. If you continue to use these older features in your page, you may at the bare minimum not get the expected functionality in your page, or in the worst case, break some execution.

How to fix it

It is recommended to identify and remove any old or 'deprecated' tags from your code. This could be done manually if you have HTML or web design skills, or could be done by upgrading the template and library versions on your website.

11. Inline CSS Checker

What it is

HTML provides the ability to embed UI styling attributes within individual HTML elements. Despite this feature being available, it is modern best practice to completely separate UI styling into separate CSS files. This separates functions and centralises UI styling into one place making it easier for example to upgrade the UI styling of a site independently of the page content and structure. Inline styles also have some particular problems in that they can degrade the page load performance of a page and unnecessarily complicate HTML code.

How to fix it

Inline Styles should be manually removed from the HTML code of a page and merged into separate CSS files, but may need the help of a designer to carefully consider their purpose and function.