How I test (and fix) my websites’ performance for FREE

…if your website is slow, you could be missing out on nearly 32% of potential leads

Let’s face it, most internet users today have the attention span of a gnat.

In fact, a Google research found that 53% of mobile website visitors will leave if a webpage doesn’t load within the first three seconds. 

And with over 60% of web traffic coming from mobile devices, this means that business owners with slow websites could be missing out on nearly 32% of potential leads!

So, for every 100 visitors to your slow website, about 32 of them will leave within the first 3 seconds if your website hasn’t loaded all the way.

That’s a lot of business you’re missing out on. So how do we fix that? We make sure your website loads fast. And one of the best ways to benchmark your website is using a FREE tool provided by Google itself, called Lighthouse.

What is Google Lighthouse?

Lighthouse is an automated tool that can help you improve the quality of your web pages. It is built directly into the Google Chrome web browser. If you have Google Chrome, then you already have access to Lighthouse.

In addition to helping you detect performance and loading issues with your site, it will also report:

• any SEO (Search Engine Optimization) issues
• any potential accessibility issues
  • to which, can negatively affect your website’s ranking if it’s not accessible. Plus, it’s just the right thing to do.
• and help ensure you’re following the best standards and conventions that Google likes

(And if you know anything about SEO and making sure your website is easy for customers to find, the most important thing is to make the Google happy!)

Will Lighthouse improve SEO?

While just simply running a Lighthouse report itself won’t automatically improve SEO, implementing the fixes the audit report says to fix can have a HUGE impact on your site’s ranking.

One of Google’s top 8 ranking factors is technical SEO, which measures things like the performance of your website, how mobile-friendly it is, and other structural aspects of your site.

Lighthouse will absolutely identify any issues that may affect these factors, and fixing them will help your page stand out in Google’s algorithm.

How to run a Lighthouse report on a web page

You can scan any web page, including a page on your own website or maybe a competitor’s.

1. Open any web page in Google Chrome (on a desktop computer)
   • For this example, I’ll scan my home page, https://AirWingWebWorks.com
2. Open the Chrome Developer Tools
   • Right click and select Inspect
   • Alternatively, press Function + F12
3. In the Developer Tools pane, click the >> icon and select Lighthouse
   
4. Now you can select your options (or just use the default selected options) and click Analyze page load
   

Wait for the report to finish, it should take anywhere from about 10 seconds to a minute or two, depending on how big the web page is.

Once the report finishes, you should see a score like the following:

Fix any issues reported

What I love most about Lighthouse is that it doesn’t only show you a score, it shows you recommendations on actually how to fix any issues reported.

Most of the time these issues are all relatively easy to fix. Lighthouse usually has great links to tutorials on how to fix any relevant problems.

Other times, you may have to search on Google how to fix a particular problem.

Here’s an example of what a rather poor audit report may look like

Shameless plug, but if you’re having trouble trying to get your audit report above a 90%, I can help!

For example, the report above is pretty bad. It’s not impossible to fix the issues in the existing site. But, seeing a report like this leads me to believe the entire site is just due for a complete rewrite anyways.

Modernizing a website to take advantage of the latest and greatest tools and technology is always a great idea!

Feel free to Contact Me if you want to help improve your site’s performance and boost your Lighthouse score!