There’s a free tool that tells you exactly how Google sees your website’s performance. Most small business owners have never used it. It takes about 60 seconds and the results are often eye-opening.
Here’s how to do it.
PageSpeed Score And what the results actually mean
Go to pagespeed.web.dev – it’s a free tool run by Google itself. Type your website address into the box and click Analyse.
Wait about 20 seconds while it runs. You’ll get two scores – one for mobile and one for desktop – each out of 100.
That’s it. You’ve just seen your website the way Google sees it.
What the scores actually mean
The scoring works like a traffic light:
90 to 100 – green. Your site is in good shape. Fast loading, good user experience, nothing to worry about.
50 to 89 – orange. Your site has room for improvement. It’s not failing, but it’s not performing as well as it could – and that has a real effect on rankings and visitor experience.
0 to 49 – red. Your site is slow. Visitors are likely leaving before it finishes loading, and Google is ranking it lower as a result.
One thing worth knowing: your mobile score is almost always lower than your desktop score, and it’s the one that matters more. The majority of people searching for local businesses in the UK are doing it on their phone. Google knows this – and it ranks mobile performance accordingly.
Why it matters for your business
A slow website costs you in two ways most people don’t immediately connect.
The first is visitors leaving. Research consistently shows that most mobile users will abandon a page that takes more than three seconds to load. They don’t wait – they go back and click the next result. If your site is in the red, a meaningful percentage of the people finding you are leaving before they’ve read a single word.
The second is rankings. Google uses Core Web Vitals – the measurements behind your PageSpeed score – as a ranking factor. A slow site doesn’t just frustrate visitors, it actively gets ranked lower than a faster competitor. If two businesses are broadly similar in Google’s eyes, the faster site wins.
Why scores drift over time
A website that scored well when it was first built won’t necessarily score well two years later.
Plug ins add weight. Images get uploaded without being optimised. New features get added without performance in mind. Each individual change might be small, but the cumulative effect on load time is significant – and it happens gradually, with nobody noticing until the score has already dropped.
This is one of the reasons performance monitoring is a standard part of proper website maintenance rather than a one-off job. A score that’s checked once at launch and never revisited is a score that’s probably out of date.
What to do if your score is low
Don’t panic – and don’t immediately start changing things yourself. A low Page Speed score is a symptom, not a diagnosis. The reasons behind it vary enormously from site to site, and the wrong fix can sometimes make things worse.
The most useful thing you can do right now is note your scores – both mobile and desktop – and share them with whoever looks after your website. If nobody currently does, that conversation is a useful starting point.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good PageSpeed score? Anything above 90 is considered good. Between 50 and 89 is average and has room for improvement. Below 50 is slow and worth addressing – particularly if your site is generating enquiries or appearing in local search results.
Does PageSpeed affect Google rankings? Yes. Google uses Core Web Vitals – the measurements that make up your PageSpeed score – as a ranking signal. A faster site will, all else being equal, rank higher than a slower one. For small businesses competing locally, this can make a real difference.
Why is my website so slow? The most common causes are unoptimised images, too many plug ins, outdated themes, slow hosting, and code that hasn’t been cleaned up over time. Often it’s a combination of several small issues rather than one obvious problem.
How do I improve my PageSpeed score? The specific fixes depend on what’s causing the low score – the PageSpeed report itself will tell you what to address. Common improvements include compressing images, removing unused plugins, enabling caching, and switching to faster hosting. A developer or maintenance provider can implement these properly without risking other parts of your site.
If your score raised questions about who’s keeping an eye on your site’s performance month to month, the post below covers what proper maintenance actually includes – and why performance monitoring is part of it.