In our final installment of this mini-series covering Core Web Vitals and what Page Speed Insights covers, let’s dive into the next topic: SEO!
This third metric in Page Speed Insights is important for covering your website’s basic elements for search engines (well, mostly Google — let’s be honest).
Let’s learn more about what it covers and why you should care.
#4: Search Engine Optimization
The SEO score in PageSpeed Insights evaluates how well your site follows best practices that help search engines understand and rank your website. While it’s not a full SEO audit of any kind, it focuses on the main key factors that affect search engine optimization and, ultimately, the visibility of your website in search results.
Here’s more specifically what it checks for:
- Title and Description Tags: It checks if each page has a title and a short description. These help search engines know what your page is about and show this info in search results.
- HTTPS: Confirms that your site is served over HTTPS, which is a secure protocol. Essentially, if you have a valid SSL certificate, your site will pass. Google prioritizes secure websites, so using HTTPS is essential for SEO.
- Avoiding Common SEO Pitfalls: It checks that search engines can access all parts of your site, like images and scripts, to properly show your content in search results. It also checks if your page is crawlable, to allow Google to show your website in search results.
Just as in the past 3 areas, the SEO score is calculated as a metric up to 100. The closer your score is to 100, the more likely your site is following these SEO best practices, and the happier you’ll make Google (who wants to make Google unhappy, anyway?).
Why you should care
Your SEO score plays a critical role in how Google discovers, understands, and ranks your website. A high SEO score means your site is optimized to be easily indexed and displayed in search results, leading to better visibility. This is essential for attracting organic traffic (searches from visitors who are looking for what you’re offering), which can drive leads and conversions without relying on paid ads.
Not only is this great for SEO, but optimizing your site also helps overall user experience — meta titles and tags, security, and best practices are all factors that search engines favor.
With the competition so fierce, any advantage you can gain is key!
Thanks for following along in this mini-series — as always, if you have any questions you can just reply to any email and I’ll be glad to hear from you!
See you soon,
