This is Part 7 in a series of blog posts on website speed optimisation. Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 and Part 6.

Here we are at post number 7!  3 more to go after today. Today we'll briefly cover Google webmaster tools to analyse site speed...

Google offers plentiful tools to monitor your site and you can easily access these webmaster tools. All you need is a google account.  The site to access these tools is http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools

Login to the website using your Google account (user id – gmail e-mail id, password – the password for that gmail e-mail id). Once inside you can add your sites that you need to monitor. If you have already added them they appear as shown below.

Click on any of those websites and this takes you to the website performance and monitoring page where you can check the speed of your site.

Here click on Labs.Under Labs more options are displayed and from this list click on Site Performance. Google checks your website's speed and generates a report as
shown below.

From the report you can find out the average time it takes for the pages in your site to load. The speed of your site is also compared to the speed of other sites on the internet. A percentage of the sites on the web whose pages load slower when compared to the loading speed of your site's pages is also calculated.

At the bottom of this report page Google mentions in a note that Webmaster Tools Labs is a testing ground for experimental features that aren't quite ready for primetime. They may change, break or disappear at any time.  In spite of this warning this free tool is indispensible to check your site's speed.

A final note

Don't forget the following upcoming online, on demand and in-person training courses:

• Joomla Hands On series - started on 8th June however you can still register to access the on-demand training. FREE for our existing customers.
• Google Analytics Hands On series - two Friday sessions on the why, what, where, when, how of your website - find out why your website is not generating leads or sales! Starts Friday 20 July.
• Introduction to Social Media - a comprehensive, instructor led, online 5 week course for businesses to learn about social media and implement practical steps. Starts 14 August 2012.
• Online Business Marketing with Facebook - an extension on the introduction to social media course where we cover in-depth implementation of Facebook for business marketing over 5 weeks with an experienced instructor. Starts 15 August 2012.
• ON DEMAND: Search Engine Optimisation for Small Business - learn the top 15 steps you can take to improve your search engine rankings. A quick 90 minute online course you can take anytime.