What is Your Website Score?

How to check the productivity of your website with Lighthouse

Your website isn’t just about looking good—it also needs to work well for the people visiting it. One of the fastest ways to check how your site is performing is with a free tool called Lighthouse, built right into Google Chrome.

What is Lighthouse?

Lighthouse is a built-in website auditor. With just a click, it gives you scores on:

  • Performance (speed + loading)
  • Accessibility (how usable it is for everyone, including people using screen readers)
  • Best Practices (whether your site follows web standards)
  • SEO (how easy it is to find your site through search engines)

How to Run a Lighthouse Report

  1. Open your website in Google Chrome.
  2. Right-click anywhere on the page and select Inspect.
  3. In the top menu of the panel that opens, click the two arrows in the developer navigation bar.
  4. Click on Lighthouse.
  5. Choose “Mobile” or “Desktop” (mobile is usually most important).
  6. Click Analyze page load.

In under a minute, you’ll see a report with scores from 0–100 in each category.

Why Accessibility Matters

Your Accessibility score tells you how welcoming your site is for all users. A higher score means things like color contrast, image alt text, and keyboard navigation are working correctly—small details that make a huge difference. I’ve included a list of definitions below if you’re not familiar with the terms just mentioned.

Even Amazon Isn’t Perfect

Just for fun, I ran Lighthouse on Amazon. The results?

  • Performance: 31%
  • Accessibility: 81%
  • Best Practices: 54%
  • SEO: 92%

Even the biggest websites aren’t perfect. The good news? Small businesses can actually move faster and make improvements more easily. Regular Lighthouse checks help you keep your site accessible, efficient, and customer-friendly.

Next Step

Run Lighthouse today and see where your website stands. Even small changes—like adding alt text or improving page speed—can make your site more productive, inclusive, and effective for your business.

Quick Definitions (in plain English)

  • Alt text: A short written description of an image so screen readers (and Google) know what it shows. Example: “Blue ceramic mug on a wooden table.”
  • Color contrast: How easy it is to see text against the background. Good contrast means your words are readable by everyone.
  • Keyboard navigation: Making sure people can use the Tab key (instead of a mouse) to move through links and buttons.
  • Performance score: A measure of how fast and smoothly your site loads for visitors.

Want help improving your score?

~ Reach out ~