How to Get Your Website Speed Insights from Google Analytics

Google Analytics or other web metrics solutions can provide an abundance of insights from  your visitors. However, you need to set it up correctly and focus on the metrics that are important for your business. In this post we’ll cover some basics to set up your Google Analytics account and gather insights to optimize and boost performance of your website.

Dashboards

Dashboards are an excellent way to have a quick look at what’s happening on your website. I’ve prepared a custom dashboard that will help you quickly look at the most important data for your website speed:

Book a demo today to see GlobalDots is action.

Optimize cloud costs, control spend, and automate for deeper insights and efficiency.

Book a demo today to see GlobalDots is action.
  • Pageviews and Avg. Page Load Time
  • Average Redirection Time
  • Average Domain Lookup Time
  • Average Server Response Time
  • Average Page Download Time
  • Average Page Load Time
  • Average Server Connection Time
  • Visits and Page Loads by Service Provider
  • Visits and Pages by Browser
  • Load Times by Browser
  • Visits and Bounce rates by Browser
  • Overall Visits

You can download / import the dashboard by clicking this link and adding it to your Google Analytics profile: https://www.google.com/analytics/web/permalink?uid=2AmqTj65QyybBdMCpVnmIQ

You can see what this dashboard will look like in she screenshot below:

Website speed dashboard showing page load times and response metrics by country and browser.

Custom reporting

Another nice way to get insight into how fast your website is, is by creating custom reports. In the following example, I will show you how to compare goal completion data with average page load time per country.

  • Navigate to Custom Reports > Create Custom Report
  • Name your report (something like “Avg Speed vs. Goals per Country”)
  • In the Metric Group add:
    • Goal Completions
    • Goal Conversion Rate
    • Average Page Load Time
  • In the Dimensions Drilldown add Country / Territory

And now you can see how many registrations you have per country. You can also do that on the city-level or any other Dimensions Drilldown. You can also use filters to finetune data and see the performance over time, or use advanced segments to filter by traffic type (search, direct, social).

Screenshot of a reporting interface showing conversions per country and page load time settings.

Site performance and speed

One of the most important information you can gather from Google Analytics is a Site Speed report (go to Content > Site Speed). I especially like Page Timings (navigate to  Content > Site Speed > Page Timings). On the additional tab you can see a drilldown to specific percentage of the users and how fast your site loads. You will get a nice overview of how much performance boost you can get by speeding up your site (not to mention conversions & sales).

A data chart showing site speed page timings and load times from 2012.

Additional Dashboards

Although additional dashboards and insights are not a cruical part of this post (website speed is), I am too tempted to share them. Depending on your type of website you can gather fantastic insights, so just import them into your analytics account and share with your colleagues.

AdWords report: https://www.google.com/analytics/web/permalink?uid=CRjDRcIcQAmf3gK7Y6Cu3Q

Mobile vs non-mobile: https://www.google.com/analytics/web/permalink?uid=bMg5P09NSZCciy0_bz6KnA

SEO & Ecommerce: https://www.google.com/analytics/web/permalink?uid=aflgS1ECSQ6ogjuLwrHbeQ

Social Dashboard: https://www.google.com/analytics/web/permalink?uid=JZYLvgxeSwCcJMtWyV0CIA

You can find additional dashboards on DashboardJunkie (and even submit your own).

Final Notes

Even with this insights, you will never know how much performance boost you can get because the data provided by Google Analytics is only the data based on visits that you receive (and you need to have a lot of visits from specific locations).

When you want to get the best performance, you need to see how your website will behave in specific locations. We suggest using Cedexis to find out how how good are specific services in specific countries.

Advertisement for GlobalDots highlighting website speed,reliability,and availability with a call to action to learn more.

About GlobalDots

With over 10 years of experience, GlobalDots have an unparallel knowledge of today’s leading web technologies. Our team know exactly what a business needs to do to succeed in providing the best online presence for their customers. We can analyse your needs and challenges to provide you with a bespoke recommendation about which services you can benefit from.

GlobalDots can help you with the following technologies: Content Delivery Network, DDoS Protection, Multi CDN, Cloud performance optimization and infrastructure monitoring.

Latest Articles

Vulnerability Assessments vs. Penetration Testing: Key Differences, Use Cases & Best Practices

They’re not interchangeable. A vulnerability assessment identifies known flaws at scale. A penetration test mimics an actual attacker probing for impact. Yet many teams treat them the same. They substitute one for the other, check a compliance box, and move on as if they’re covered. They’re not. And that gap shows up later in real-world […]

Ganesh The Awesome
7th July, 2025
Web Application Firewalls (WAFs): The Evolving First Line of Defense in Cloud Security

Modern applications are built for speed, not simplicity. Containers, microservices, and cloud-native deployments have blown up the security perimeter. Traditional tools can’t keep up with this complexity. That’s why Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) matter. But the WAF of 2025 isn’t just an appliance sitting in front of a static website. It’s a flexible, cloud-aware security […]

Ganesh The Awesome
7th July, 2025
What is an API Security Audit?

 In January 2024, a misconfigured API exposed 650,000 private messages. These included passwords and internal communications. No exploit chain. No zero-day. Just a public-facing endpoint with no authentication. This wasn’t an isolated incident. From T-Mobile and Twitter (now X) to Kronos Research and the US Treasury, attackers have consistently used APIs as entry points. They […]

Ganesh The Awesome
26th June, 2025
The Ultimate API Security Checklist for 2025

APIs are now the top attack vector in enterprise apps. In 2024 alone, breaches tied to APIs cost an average of $4.88 million, and that number is rising fast. Attackers exploit gaps in API authentication, input validation, and outdated endpoints to compromise systems. Legacy controls no longer suffice, and the OWASP API Top 10 outlines […]

Ganesh The Awesome
26th June, 2025

Unlock Your Cloud Potential

Schedule a call with our experts. Discover new technology and get recommendations to improve your performance.

    GlobalDots' industry expertise proactively addressed structural inefficiencies that would have otherwise hindered our success. Their laser focus is why I would recommend them as a partner to other companies

    Marco Kaiser
    Marco Kaiser

    CTO

    Legal Services

    GlobalDots has helped us to scale up our innovative capabilities, and in significantly improving our service provided to our clients

    Antonio Ostuni
    Antonio Ostuni

    CIO

    IT Services

    It's common for 3rd parties to work with a limited number of vendors - GlobalDots and its multi-vendor approach is different. Thanks to GlobalDots vendors umbrella, the hybrid-cloud migration was exceedingly smooth

    Motti Shpirer
    Motti Shpirer

    VP of Infrastructure & Technology

    Advertising Services