Google released a new tool for SEOs, and it’s called “Lighthouse.”
It’s a way to audit the quality of your site’s pages.
The project is currently in beta, which means that the interface isn’t final and there are still some bugs to work out.
But if you’d like to get an early peek at Lighthouse, click here.
This article will walk you through what Lighthouse is, how it works, and what kind of data you can expect from it.
What is Google Lighthouse?
Google Lighthouse is a new tool from Google to help webmasters improve the quality of their sites.
It’s designed to be an easy way for web developers to evaluate pages using Chrome Developer Tools (DevTools). There’s a command-line version that allows SEOs to run audits on sites remotely.
Google Lighthouse is currently in beta, so things are subject to change.
There are still some bugs to work out and the interface isn’t final.
But it’s worth trying out if you want a quick way to audit key SEO issues like performance, accessibility, and overall site quality.
How does Google Lighthouse perform an SEO audit?
One of the most interesting parts of Lighthouse is how it visualizes SEO in a new way.
Lighthouse analyzes your page and then shows you its analysis using a set of different “audits.”
Each audit tells you about something different, like performance or accessibility.
It also gives each audit a score based on whether the page satisfies a set of standards.
All the different audits and scores are shown on a single page, and you can click to expand any audit to see why it was triggered (and how).
Lighthouse also gives some “quick fixes” for common problems.
These quick fixes might involve using a particular HTML element or adding structured data markup.
At the moment, there aren’t any suggestions for fixing deeper site-quality issues.
This might eventually change as Lighthouse develops.
How to audit your website’s SEO with Google Lighthouse?
Running an audit using Lighthouse is easy.
You just need a browser that supports Chrome Developer Tools (DevTools). This currently includes the latest versions of Chrome.
You can also run Lighthouse from the command line.
For example, you might use it as a pre-commit git hook to ensure your pages are never committed if they fail an audit.
You’ll probably want to make sure that you understand how DevTools works before doing this though!
What are the best practices for SEO audits with Google Lighthouse?
Lighthouse gives you a nice list of key SEO issues to work on for each page.
It’s up to you to decide which suggestions are most important, but there are some general best practices that apply across the board:
Use the HTML elements that Lighthouse tells you to.
These typically include things like <header>, <nav>, and <main>.
This is good for SEO.
Using the right HTML elements helps Google understand what your page is about.
It also makes your page easy to navigate for people who are using assistive technology like a screen reader.
Use structured data on your pages where appropriate.
The “Structured Data” audit in Lighthouse will tell you if your page is missing any structured data.
The most common kinds of structured data are for things like review snippets and recipes.
Structured data helps Google index your content more precisely and display it in rich snippets.
You can learn more about adding structured data to your websites here.
Lighthouse also lets you see accessibility issues on your pages.
For example, Lighthouse can tell you if your page doesn’t have enough color contrast between text and background colors.
It also checks to see if there are any accessibility issues with elements on the page (like an image without alt-text).
You can learn more about how to make your website accessible here.
Summary:
Google Lighthouse is a new tool that helps web developers and SEOs audit their websites for key SEO issues.
It currently comes in two formats: browser-based, which can be used to audit sites on the fly; or command line-based, which allows you to run audits remotely.
Google Lighthouse also has some nice features like visualizing your site’s accessibility and performance problems as well as offering quick fixes for common errors (like adding structured data markup).
The best practices for using this tool are simple: use HTML elements required by Google if they’re available; add structured data where appropriate; make sure you have enough color contrast between text colors and background colors when applicable; try not to publish pages with accessibility issues such as missing alt tags on images; make sure your pages don’t have any other SEO-related errors such as duplicate title tags or missing meta descriptions.
Remember, it’s an audit tool, not a bad-site detector!
It will point out issues that affect the way Google indexes and displays your site.
It won’t pick up on things like spelling errors or broken links, but it will tell you what Google doesn’t like about your pages.
Good luck!
Ali is a digital marketing blogger and author who uses the power of words to inspire and impact others. He has written for leading publications like Business2Community, Inc. Magazine, and Marketing Profs. When not writing, he enjoys spending time with his family.