Why is my Page Speed Score so Low?

1. The Page Speed score as a whole has little impact on their ranking. The biggest factor why marketers say that it is is conversion. That ppl don't want to wait for a website to load. My biggest rebuttal for this is asking them if they feel like their website loads too slow. Ask them to look at it as a consumer, if they were looking for repairs. Did they have to wait any longer than any other site they go to?
2. If they are looking at a Lighthouse report, the factors Google takes into account changes frequently. They always use the lowest 3g or internet speed and base it on having almost no service. Everyone's speed score took a crash when they made their most recent changes. Best suggestion is to have them run their competitor's website through it as well and compare.
3. Loading times fluctuate based on so many factors and some are out of our control. For example, their internet connection and how fast their internet makes a connection with our server. Also, what browser are they using (Chrome, Mozilla, Edge, IE) can also impact the score with how fast it reads the code. That isn't something that the website can control.
4. Another factor is that Google is wanting websites to use .webp which isn't favorable to other search engines. They mark it as you could POSSIBLY save a tiny bit of space, however, it doesn't work on all platforms. So then your website has to have multiple lines of code, which is also a no-no. Keeping it universal with SVGs, PNGs, and JPGs might mark your score down by a point or two but it allows your website to look universal across all screen sizes, platforms, and search engines.
5. The Score itself changes every time you run a report not just because of the above factors, but it also takes into consideration any cookies, cache, or internet connection at the time. Running one test on your website in an incognito window is the best report to get you an avg of what the website normally ranks.
6. Adding more widgets, scripts, and sections to the website after it goes online can cause the website score to drop from when it initially goes live (like pop-ups, side buttons, videos, review tools, chatbots, etc). We usually make sure we limit these so it doesn't have a big impact on a website's loading time.

What OA does before a website goes online is we run reports, both mobile and desktop, and we aim for higher than 70. After that, other factors contribute to a small drop, like Google Analytics, Chatbots, and other smaller widgets. The goal is to always have your scores about a 60. We aim for 70+ because we know once the site is flipped on, then those extra widgets will have it drop.

Page Speed Video

Dave S made a video explaining page speed scores we can send to customers. Click Here