Before you start5 steps · about 8 minutes
Before you start
- Your website address, plus two or three of your most important pages
- A phone, to try the site the way many customers will
- Optional: Search Console access (our GA4 & Search Console guide covers this)
- Optional: a login for your website or hosting, if you want to fix things yourself
Good to know: Test on mobile first. It's usually the harder test to pass, and PageSpeed Insights shows the mobile result by default.
Step 1 of 5
1Run PageSpeed Insights
Go to pagespeed.web.dev and test your home page and your most important service page. Look at the Core Web Vitals assessment at the top first: it's based on real visitors. The performance score underneath is a lab test: 90 or above is good, 50 to 89 needs improvement and under 50 is poor.
Step 2 of 5
2Check Core Web Vitals in Search Console
Open the Core Web Vitals report in Search Console. It groups your pages into Good, Need improvement and Poor for mobile and desktop, using real visitor data. The targets: LCP within 2.5 seconds, INP of 200 milliseconds or less, CLS of 0.1 or less. Smaller sites may not have enough visits to show data yet.
Step 3 of 5
3Look at your images
Oversized photos are one of the most common culprits. Make sure images are resized to the size they're shown at, compressed, and saved in a modern format like WebP or AVIF. Lazy-load images further down the page, but never the main image at the top. Our free image optimiser resizes and converts them in your browser.
Step 4 of 5
4Count your plugins, apps and scripts
Every plugin, Shopify app, chat widget, tracking pixel and embedded video adds weight. List what's installed, remove anything you don't use, and check whether PageSpeed Insights flags third-party code as slowing things down.
Step 5 of 5
5Check your hosting and caching
If pages are slow to start loading at all, the problem is often the server. Look for warnings about server response time in PageSpeed Insights. Budget hosting, no caching and no CDN are common causes. On WordPress, decent hosting and a good caching plugin make a big difference.
All 5 steps done
Guide complete. Nice work.
All five checked! Now fix the biggest one first. Keep a copy of the whole guide, with every step, tip and source, for next time.
Stuck on anything? Tell us where and we'll pick it up from there.
What the Core Web Vitals measure
LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) is how long the biggest thing on screen takes to appear. INP (Interaction to Next Paint) is how quickly the page responds when someone taps or clicks. CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) is how much things jump around while loading. Google measures them at the 75th percentile of real visits, so most of your visitors need a good experience, not just the lucky ones.
Best-practice tips
- Biggest win firstDon't chase a perfect 100. Fix whatever PageSpeed Insights says will save the most, then test again.
- Real visitors beat lab scoresIf your Core Web Vitals pass but the lab score is middling, you're in decent shape. Real-world data is what the Core Web Vitals report uses.
- Test after every changeNew plugin, theme or tracking code? Run PageSpeed Insights again. Speed tends to creep down over time.
- Embed video, don't upload itHost videos on YouTube or Vimeo and embed them, rather than uploading big video files to your own site.
- Fonts add upEvery extra font and weight is another file to download. Two font families is usually plenty.
- Don't lazy-load the heroYour main image at the top should load straight away. Lazy-loading it makes the page slower, not faster.
Questions, answered
What's a good PageSpeed score?
90 or above is good, 50 to 89 needs improvement and under 50 is poor. But pass the Core Web Vitals first: they're based on real visitors.
Why does my score change every time?
Lab tests vary with network conditions and server load. Run it a few times and look at the trend, not one number.
Search Console says there's not enough data
That's normal for smaller sites: the report needs enough real Chrome visits. Use PageSpeed Insights' lab results in the meantime.
Will a faster site rank higher?
Page experience is one of many things Google's systems look at, and great content still matters most. A faster site also means fewer people give up before it loads.