Lighthouse – A New SEO Tool from Google to Help You Check Your Site’s SEO Implementation

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Many business owners and marketers miss out on their SEO implementation without even knowing. This new tool helps you do better!

Another New SEO Tool?

I hear this a lot at the highly caffeinated agency: I am not sure my SEO implementation is working? How can I tell if I am doing SEO the right way? Is there an easy way to tell how my website is doing for SEO?

Up to a few years ago, it would require a search engine specialist to give you an answer. But now there are all these “supposed” SEO tools that do just that. I mention “supposed” because many of the free SEO tools are not all that helpful or accurate. But there is a new SEO tool you may just want to check out!

Yes, I can hear you gasping in the background. Not another new SEO tool, you moan! I get it. You are tired of all the SEO tools that are nothing more than lead generating tactics of their developers. But this one is a bit different. First of all, this new SEO tool has been launched by the Google Developer team. Which means it is aligned with best practices according to Google.

What Is This New SEO Tool?

Web.dev, which is the official name for Lighthouse, is an online tool that was developed by the Google Developers Team to provide website owners, developers, and search marketers assistance in applying the latest web technologies. Here is what the team had to say:

Web.dev is the ultimate resource for developers of all backgrounds to learn, create, and solve on the web. It’s meant to not only educate developers, but help them apply what they’ve learned to any site they work on, be it personal or business. Web.dev was borne of a belief that if we make high-quality experiences easy to build, it will enable more meaningful engagement on the web—for users and developers alike. Simply put, we realized the only way the web gets better is if we help the people building it succeed.

Google Developer Team

According to Google, this tool is designed after the analysis of user needs that they have been witnessed over the last ten plus years. To provide the best experience for website owners, Lighthouse has several audit tools, including SEO, accessibility, performance, and more. Take a look at what is included in this new SEO Tool.

Lighthouse – A New SEO Tool

The Key Aspects of this New SEO Tool

  • SEO: Checks whether your site is optimized in terms of on-page SEO and discoverable to search engines and users.
  • Accessibility: Checks for common issues that may prevent users from accessing your content.
  • Progressive Web App (PWA): Assessment of your page against the baseline Progressive Web App (PWA) Checklist.
  • Best Practices: Looks for everything from HTTPS usage to correct image aspect ratios.
  • Performance: Audits for metrics like first paint and time to interactive to determine lag.

Using This New SEO Tool

Here is the great part about this new SEO tool, it is super easy to use! No downloads or code snippets involved! All you need to do to check the SEO implementation of your website is entering your website or page URL on this page. Once your site is tested, you’ll get the results and recommendations as per the tool’s analysis. You will also be able to download a detailed report. This will provide you with extra guidance regarding best practices that should be implemented on your website to make it more efficient.

There is no limit how often you can use this new SEO tool, or the size of the website or number of pages it will test. The tool generates reports on a daily basis, which means once you implement a recommendation on your website, you can check your progress the following day.

A Quick Note of Caution

As of this p,ost Lighthouse is still in Beta mode. As a result, there are bound to be some bugs in the system. Check out the November 14, 2018 update from the Google Developer Team here.

Other SEO Tools

If you are interested in doing your own SEO you can save a lot of time by using professional SEO tools. While there is an almost endless variety of free and premium tools available many of them are of questionable use. Part of our SEO tips is to use industry-standard tools like these:

Here at the highly caffeinated agency, we use all of the above on a daily basis. We know and trust them, and so should you. If you have any questions or need some additional info please feel free to reach out to us!

How Did This New SEO Tool Work for You?

Now, that wasn’t so bad, was it? As you can see checking on your own SEO implementation is pretty straightforward. Simply run the url of the page or site you want to check. This new SEO tool will provide you with everything you need to see where you are falling short, and how to fix that.

What is your target audience looking for? What type of search terms or phrases are they using? And what do you need to tell search engines to make that intent clear? The above SEO infographic will help you find the answers.

Keep in mind that no single strategy will work equally well under all circumstances. You may need to adjust for your own SEO implementation to provide the results YOU are looking for. Feel free to let me know what works and doesn’t work for you.

You can also find more SEO and other innovative web design tips on our blog.

Now, go and build your search rankings, get more search traffic, engage a new audience, you know where I am going with this, right!

Thanks, we appreciate your help in eradicating bad business websites!

By Gregor Schmidt Co-Founder / Creative Technologist @gregorspeaks