SEO Performance Score, what is it?

You need to know what your website is lacking in SEO performance before you can start working to make it search-friendly. To do this, you need to run a performance Audit on your site and each page as you go.
There are many SEO analysis and performance website audit tools online for you to choose from. Many are paid options requiring sign-up and giving information about your business, website, and yourself.

Google has a dependable website performance tool that is free and trustworthy. There are no gimmicks or hidden costs and you don’t have to sign-up to use it.

Lighthouse-Tools for Web Developers

Lighthouse by Google is an open-source automated tool that will run a performance check on your website. You don’t have to be a web developer to use it. It’s free and easy to use. It will check performance (Speed), accessibility, best practices, and of course search engine optimization (SEO).

I wrote about how to use this tool in another blog on SEO, “Simple SEO Checker” so I won’t go into using the tool here.

Your SEO Score

Once you or your web developer/designer runs the performance check on your page, you’ll have several scores to look at. All of the scores are important and can be improved on but the one score we are looking at today is your “SEO Score.”
The image below shows the results from one of my competitor’s websites. As you can see these scores are very low with the exception of “Best Practices.”
The SEO score is to the far right before the “Progressive Web App Circle”. The SEO score here is”67″ and that indicates that there is much work needed to improve the SEO ranking for this page of the website. The page here is the “Home Page” of the website and the first page indexed by search engines.

How Do I Fix My Scores?

Fixing your SEO problems can take some time and you should have a basic knowledge of HTML code. If using WordPress you’ll need to know how to edit your core PHP files to add Meta Titles and Descriptions to the head of your website pages. Another option is to use an SEO plugin like “Yoast”.
If you’re not familiar with editing code or your website’s metadata, then you will have to hire an SEO Agency/Service like CMVA, or have your own developer do it for you. Just make sure you hire a trusted and reliable service.
(SEO Scam – And how to hire an SEO)

What to fix?

Luckily, “Lighthouse” has you covered on what to fix. Once you get your performance score at the top of the page, you can scroll down to see what needs to be fixed. (See Image Below)

As you can see, the above website performance fix-it list is pretty long. Lighthouse provides a very detailed list of what to fix and information on how to fix these items. If you don’t have some technical experience, this list can be overwhelming.
Some of the problems can be easy to fix, like adding “ALT Descriptions” to your images or structuring your content headings from “<h1> down to <h5> in the content hierarchy.
Other fixes may require extensive research and tech skills that you can pass off to your web developer. If you don’t have a developer or designer familiar with fixing your SEO problems you will need to hire one or learn to fix these problems yourself, and that will take time.

YouTube Video by “Elegant Themes”, What is Google Lighthouse?

Proven Results

How do I get Results?

Can I check the performance of CMVA?

As you can see, on average the scores are at 92 and that’s not bad for SEO. Some really need some work, and all of these scores come from self-proclaimed “SEO Specialist.” Some claim to have you on page 1 almost overnight. Sorry, it takes several weeks to several months to see great results. You can get on page 1 usually within a week or so, just not at the top.

My SEO Scores are high why don’t I rank at the top?

That’s a good question.
My search position would fluctuate from low to mid rankings in search results for my area (Chesterfield, VA.) even though my SEO score was in the mid 90’s at the time.
I did some research and found different results for different companies, even their review scores didn’t seem to make a difference or the length of time in business. what did matter, was the authoritative structured content.

I started an SEO experiment to test my skills. What would it take to rank at the top position in search results for my area? Starting the test in mid-November of 2021 and ending on February 7th, 2022.
In November my search position was at 5 on the businesses map, by February my business was at the top on maps and would sometimes be listed above the business map but below the last paid ad.

I did this by auditing my website and fixing all SEO problems. Then I reeducated myself on SEO strategies and tactics and used that education to get top Direct and Organic search results. (No Paid Ads Used).
I tracked my results using Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and SERP results. (Search Engine Results Page)

Both Google Analytics graphs and Search Console show an upward trend in searches and inbound traffic.

Search Engine Result Pages. The first shows results for “Web Design Near Me” and the second shows results for “SEO Service Chesterfield, VA.

SEO, it’s all in the Content

To rank higher in search results, increase inbound traffic, and brand-business awareness takes time, work, and the ability to constantly produce fresh website content.
In the above Google Analytics chart, you will notice that the graph line trends upward 2/3rds of the way across the chart. Around the middle of January, the line starts falling. This is about the time I slowed down on writing content for my website and sharing my posts on social platforms.

Beyond The SEO Audit Score

Face value is what you have when looking at your SEO Performance Score. It’s the very basics in SEO to get a 100 score from Lighthouse. That’s right, SEO goes well beyond your SEO Audit work.
There is so much more you can do to see high rankings on Search Engine Results Pages and you need to do it all to go beyond your face-value scores.

Unless you have a great deal of time to learn SEO and the strategies involved for success or you want to waste time searching for a good agency, just let CMVA do the hard work for you. You will get the results you want.

By, Twales. CMVA Content Manager.