This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful. Full Cookie Policy can be read here.
What is Google Lighthouse and why you should care?
Google Lighthouse is an online tool for auditing your website with the purpose of helping website owners and their development teams improve the quality of web pages and web apps.
- Fact #1: The Lighthouse results is Google telling you what it thinks about your website quality.
- Fact #2: Google is likely to be your biggest organic referrer of new and repeat website visitors.
- Fact #3: Google uses site quality as a ranking signal and rewards high quality websites as this gives visitors better experiences than they would have otherwise with poorer ranking sites. Quality sites as rated by Lighthouse will, on a like for like basis, get better Search Engine Results Position (SERPs) than lesser sites. Having a high score in Lighthouse is a positive indication of efficient SEO work on that page.
What’s tested on my Website
The areas of the website that are tested are prime quality markers:-
- Performance
- Accessibility
- Best Practices
- SEO and, if applicable,
- Progressive Web Apps
Once you start engaging with your scores on a program of improvements, you’ll realise that speed of delivery is critical to success. Website speed will be covered in later “Keys to High Converting Websites”, but for now it’s a mix of quality hosting, quality web coding and the all round reduction in unnecessary transmitted content, including image sizes.
How do I get to my Lighthouse score
Lighthouse is accessed via a Chrome Browser plugin that you get from the Chrome store here.
It may well be installed in your Chrome browser already.
1. Open Chrome
2. Press F12 and the browser opens up another developers window.
3.On the top menu go to the right and choose “Lighthouse”
4. Select mobile and run the tests
When the tests complete that take a few minutes you’ll have a benchmark of the performance of that web page at that moment in time. Top quality sites will have metrics in the 90’s, however do discuss this with your web team as sometimes there are tradeoff’s that have been made consciously during the website development. So use this as a practical measure.
How do I improve my Lighthouse Score?
Your scores can be increased through on page items such as optimising images for size and adding good alt tags, reducing unnecessary code, using complaint coding, ensuring H tags are used properly, internal links are included and a very long list other key items. This is where your SEO and Web development teams work their alchemy, as there are so many different measures that can be taken for each metric. Never underestimate the value of a top search position on Google for a generic keyword relevant to your industry.
This is Key #6 in the series of “Keys to High Converting Websites”
by Simon Thomas of Toucan Internet LLP.
Stand by for other Key topics in future issues aimed at giving you sales, marketing and operational advantages: Social Media Integration, Digital Mindset, Live Chat, Design, Improving Click Through Rates, Security, Business Automation and more.