Speed Testing 56 Swindon IT Support Service Websites

IT Support Services, should by definition, have top notch websites running like clockwork, so we tested 56 Swindon IT Support Service websites to see how they rate, in particular testing their speed and search rankings. See the results.

Speed Testing Process

To run the tests we used two established go to testing platforms that both provide a speed & performance scores as well as recommendations on issues that need to be addressed:

PageSpeed Insights from Google, offering mobile & desktop data, accessibility and seo scores.

GTmetrix, provides a grade and scores for performance, structure (which represents how well the website is built), load speed (called largest contentful paint / how long it takes to load the most important elements of the page) and blocking time (time wasted by loading scripts).

Please Note: our test process was relaxed, websites were not all tested at the same time; but over a few days in mid November 2023; a range of different factors can effect speed, such as server load, so retesting even a short time after the intial test can generate slightly different results. Furthermore, the websites we visited, may have changed since we tested them. The purpose of our article is not to call out the slow coaches, but to highlight the importance of a fast loading websites and to show you how you can improve performance.

Websites Included and Excluded from the Testing

Included were 56 firms listed in Google Search and in Google Maps for keyword: Swindon IT Support Service. We attempted to exclude national firms, but probably missed a few.

Swindon IT Support Services listed in Google Maps without a website, were obviously excluded, but worth mentioning, that there are a good number of firms listed in Google Maps without websites listed.

Mismatch for Results on Google Maps vs Google Search

This was a surprise, huge mismatch between results at Google Maps and standard search at Google.co.uk. Of the top 20 results in Google Search, only 7 appeared in Google Maps. Of the top 20 in Google Maps, only 5 appeared in Google Search.

Ranking for Related Keywords

We focused on keyword: Swindon IT Support Service, but within this there are a huge range of completely different related services that will generate different results like: computer repair, data servers, helpdesk support, cloud computing, data backup, network security etc. so for firms seeking to get positioning, it’s crucial to focus on your niche, the particular services that you are most interested in offering.

Speed Testing Results

Full results in csv format are available on request in return for a link to this survey from your website or a plug on social media.

GTmetrix Load Speeds

Speed based on GTmetrix LCP, top at 0.5 seconds load speed were DJP IT Services, congratulations to them, astonishingly the website seems to be hosted on a free Wix server. Some correlation here between page structure (build quality) and speed.

The average speed score for 56 websites was 2.64 seconds. 17 of 59 websites tested scored 1.2 seconds or better, so if your website loads in 1.2 seconds or less, your in the top 30%.

Wooden Spoon goes to schemashine.com, which seems to load quickly, but continues to load background images for ages on 18.2 seconds; computerhubuk.com on 9.8 seconds.

GTmetrix Page Structure

Represents how well the page is built for optimal performance.

The winner and the only website with a 100% score is, astonishingly, our website at swindon-website-design.co.uk, we don’t actually offer any IT services except website design, but included ourselves in the results for comparison. The top Swindon IT Support Service website on 99% was point2pointit.com.

The average score for Page Structure for 56 websites was 87%. Over half, 37 of the 59, scored 87% or over.

Wooden Spoon for the worst Page Structure at 70% goes to qiexe.co.uk who also build websites.

Significantly bad GTmetrix Performance award with a score of just 16% goes to wintek.solutions, not ideal for a Swindon IT Support Service providing IT infrastructure & Consultancy.

Google Search results, shown are positions 3 to 7, because the top two positions were held by firms based further afield.

Hats off here to innovationitsupport.com, who were listed 1st on Google Maps and 3rd in Google Search, despite having average scores for load time and structure.

Correlation: Load Speed vs Search Position

This chart for top 28 listings at Google.co.uk and GTmetrix page load speed. I can’t see any correlation here between page speed and positioning. Of course there are many more factors that influence search positioning, speed is just one of them.

How to Improve Your Website Speed

1. Install a Performance Plugin, a real simple task you can undertake to easily improve your website speed, install a plugin like WP Rocket or W3 Total Cache, these plugins automatically make performance adjustments.
2. Reduce Image Sizes, designers and editors have their focus elsewhere and often forget to optimise image size and compression, again, for WordPress websites, use a plugin that automatically optimises images, your website speed will improve.
3. Website Hosting has a significant impact on page speed, please consider our Fast Swindon Website Hosting package to improve your website speed.

Page Speed SEO Score Results

Worst was netzen.co.uk/it-support-swindon/ but despite that they took 12th position in Google Search.

16 of the 56 tested scored 100, suggesting it doesn’t take that much effort to get that right.

Swindon IT Support Services with No SSL Certificate!

SSL security certificates are now standard, they provide the https:// at the start of a url and prevent browser alerts, but we did find one Swindon IT Support Service website, itsrv.com, that didn’t have one.

Result Failures and Testing Blocked

Some of the Swindon IT Support Service websites tested seem to have blocking setup preventing generation of results. I’m not sure why they do this, but someone might let me know. 2 websites failed the GTmetrix test, and 10 websites blocked PageSpeed Results, including tbeswindonandwilts.co.uk and excaliburcomms.co.uk.