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Meet Google's Lighthouse, the free tool that will provide you with a complete audit of the performance of your website.
Getting the best performance from a website is a constant priority if you want to attract as many visits as possible. In the market there are many tools that help evaluate a website, most are paid.
If you haven't heard of Lighthouse until now, it's time to get to know it and incorporate it into the evaluation routines of your website.
This tool will help you to increase the loading speed, improve accessibility, optimize positioning and identify vulnerabilities, at the hands of Google itself.
Do you need more reasons than these?
Below you will learn what Google's Lighthouse is, how you can install it in Chrome, and how to share the report.
What is Google's Lighthouse?
It is an open source toolwhich performs an evaluation of a website to find spaces for improvement in various areas. Lighthouse only requires you to provide a URL and it will automatically start generating reports based on your interaction with the website.
Its main objective is to help you achieve a very fast loading website with other functionalities that point to positioning, security and breadth in design.
These reports show data on the following:
Performance
It has to do with performance and reports all those elements that prevent fast loading on the web. Speed is one of the most relevant aspects for SEO positioning, because it improves the user experience.
Lighthouse offers relevant information in this regard, but if you use Wordpress we recommend that you read first this article for you to make it go full blast.
Accessibility
Evaluate the existence of a header on the web and other factors to verify that the content is fully readable for the user. To do this, check colors, resize the text to make it easier to read and more.
Best practice
In this item, aspects such as the security of the site and its vulnerabilities are evaluated. With this you can ensure the reduction of failures and attacks.
SEO
Provides information about possible flaws within the displayed content, which will affect organic search engine positioning.
Progressive Mobile Apps
Check the performance of your web page when it loads on mobile devices and how easy it is on sites with little signal.
How is Google's Lighthouse Run?
There are several alternatives from which it is possible to run this tool:
- From the Chrome Developer Tools.
- Installing the application extension in the Chrome browser.
- From a Node.
- Inside PageSpeed Insights.
We describe the first two below.
How to Launch Google Lighthouse from Developer Tools?
It's very simple. After you have loaded the website you want to evaluate, it is only necessary to access the Chrome menu in the three-dot button found in the upper right region.
Then you choose the option More tools and finally tools for developers.
Then, it is necessary to select the Lighthouse option that is located in the >> button.
It will then show the options to choose from before generating the report.
Finally, press a click on the Generate report button that has a blue background and then wait a few seconds or minutes while the report is made on that website.
How to Install and Run Google's Lighthouse on Chrome?
This seems to us to be a much faster and more comfortable way to carry out the execution, because once you have installed the extension it will only be necessary to access the web page that you want to evaluate and press a click on the button of the respective extension to begin the process.
For this, the first thing you need to do is access the lighthouse extension from Google.
Once there, click on the Add to Chrome button and a dialog box will appear asking if you want to install Lighthouse, so click on Add extension.
Wait a few seconds while the installation completes. Once finished, it will send a message showing you the place of the icon as well as some instructions for use.
When you close this dialog, pin the extension in the browser bar so that it is always visible.
You just need to press one click on the button that shows a puzzle or jigsaw shape and then press another click on the button with the tack shape that is located on the right side of the extension, until it turns blue.
Now, to run Lighthouse, it is necessary to insert the web address of the web page you want to evaluate in the browser bar and then click on the button for the extension. Immediately, it will run and in a few seconds it will offer you relevant information about your website.
Once you click on the lighthouse icon, a window will open and show a blurred image while processing.
Finally, it will show the report.
The extension is also available for Firefox.
How to Use Google's Lighthouse Reports to Improve the Website?
Once this report is generated, it is necessary to carefully review each suggestion that it offers, so that the website reaches the optimal level of performance.
The complexity is that these reports are issued in English.
Review each suggestion. By selecting it, you can expand the container and see which aspect or code extract it refers to so that you can study the possibilities for improvement.
It is very difficult to reach the maximum rating, but not impossible. The recommendation is that you address the SEO and security aspects as soon as possible, so that later you can solve the speed and accessibility aspects.
How to Share Google Lighthouse Reports on Chrome?
Once you have generated the report, it is possible to share it. For this, it is necessary to access the button with the three vertical points that belong to the application and select from its multiple options.
From there you can print it, this includes the possibility of generating a PDF file. Also, it allows the option of creating a document in JSON or HTML format, copying the JSON to paste it wherever you want, as well as saving the Gist in Github.
Additionally, you have other options offered by the browser itself, which allow you to share the link, generate a QR code, among other modalities. All you need to do is press one click on the Share this page icon.
Conclusion
Lighthouse is a powerful free and open source toolwhich helps maximize the performance of your website. This is one of the many applications that Google offers to improve the world wide web.
The result is the report of a complete audit on aspects such as loading speed, ease of reading, security, guidelines for positioning and ease of use on mobile devices, among others.
There are several ways Lighthouse can be run: from Chrome developer tools, such as a Chrome extension, from Node, and from Page Speed.
Once you run the reports, you need to follow each of the suggestions providedto optimize the general performance of the web. The application offers multiple ways to share the reports, including as PDF, HTML, and JSON.
It is a powerful but simple to use tool that you need to incorporate into your website evaluation routines so that you get the best results within cyberspace.
Thanks for your time. ;-)