How to Check if the Quality of your Website is Good or Bad – for Free?

Okay, you hired the best software developer in the town, paid him a hefty amount of money, but how do you determine if the work provided to you justifies it? Here's how you can know it by using Google Lighthouse.

Google Lighthouse

Google Lighthouse is a free tool inside your Chrome desktop browser that helps you measure your website's performance.

It not just tells you about the current shortcomings but also suggests ways you can overcome it. All the developers should know about this.

A pretty handy tool for improving web pages. Let's get into it.

How to access lighthouse

1. Open Google Chrome developer tools by going to the browser settings. (browser settings > more tools > developer tools)
2. Look for the Lighthouse tab and open it

Auditing options

You can select which out of the 5 categories you want to perform audit on. There's also an option to simulate the device type (Mobile or Desktop).

1. Performance

   It tells you how well the code is written. It is based on the metrics such as time taken to render the UI, blocking time, time to interactivity, etc.

2. Best Practices

   It tells you whether the coding best practices have been followed.

3. Accessibility

   How accessible is your site for various users and screen readers.

4. SEO

   Search Engine Optimization. These checks ensure that your page is optimized for search engine results ranking.

5. Progressive Web App

   Checks whether your app follows all the guidelines recommended for an app to be a PWA. More on PWAs later.

Once you hit the Generate Report button. You'll see the results for your website. Try getting all the ratings above 90 (out of 100) for your websites.

If you want to build such awesome websites, you can always contact me.

More on Lighthouse

Take Away

Use lighthouse whenever you want to benchmark or improve your website. Have fun checking and ranking your and your friend's website.