Accessing your Google Scores
Knowing the Google scores for your web pages is an important step towards improving your Google listings.
If you have a business website and would like to check your Google scores then please follow the instructions below.
Four quick steps to seeing your Google Scores
How to generate your own Google scores report
These browsers have Google scores built in.
1: Open your webpage an 'incognito' tab
Getting into the Google checking tool
2: Press F12 and the console will open
One of the options will be labelled Lighthouse
3: Click the 'Lighthouse' label - maybe hidden
You should now see a 'Generate Report' button
4: Click the 'Generate Report' button and wait
What Will Your Google Scores Report Tell You?
Performance
Possibly the most important measurement Google make is how quickly your site loads after someone clicks a link to you in the search engine. People hate waiting so the faster your site loads the happier Google are. You don't need to worry about the technicalities.
Accessibility
Google is also very keen that your website can be accessed by everyone. That included those who may have sight or mobility issues. So they measure all the aspects of your site that allow everyone to use it on mobiles, tabs, laptops and desktop computers
Best Practice
Google checks to see if your website has been built using the best practises as this can also have an impact on your visitors enjoyment of visiting your site. So they want to know all your links work correctly, that images are optimised and so on. It can get a little technical and is maybe one for your web developer.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
This is a biggy and one you really should be hitting 100% on. Google gives this score to make sure your page is laid out correctly. Also, but not in the report, is the under lying requirement for making sure your content is written and presented correctly. Correct title and keyword placement and density will all help your search result listings
Core Web Vitals
This section of six items is listed under performance and can get a little technical. The core web vitals are all about how your web pages are rendered in a browser. It uses terms like 'first contentful paint' and 'layout shift' but all you really need to worry about is that your overall performance is above 90% most of the time. If your site has been built correctly these difficult terms shouldn't cause an issue.
The Google love
Overall the point of your Google report is to let you know if Google love your site or not. In the past Google have let poor websites slip through but the strong sense now is that they are going to be looking much closer and rewarding those sites that produce over 90% results. Exactly how this will playout in the listings themselves is a little unclear but google do tend to reward good behaviour.
Your Google Scores Results and what to do next.
Having generated your results you need to be happy that you are receiving all green +90% results. If your ‘performance’ score is close, run the report again because that score is affected by server load and other external factors. Ignore the progressive web app results – However Best practice, Accessibility and SEO must all be green. These can be corrected within your website by your website developer.
Now that you’ve passed this stage successfully you need to make sure your content is correctly optimised. This includes using the correct keywords, titles and website schemas. This is Advanced ‘On page’ SEO and together with your Google scores can fundamentally improve your search engine listings.
