Real Lighthouse scores. Real-world speed.
Most small-business sites score 40 to 60 on Google's mobile audit. Every site I build scores 95 or higher. These are real published sites, not cherry-picked screenshots. Fast pages are easier to use on phones, and easier to trust.
- 99
- Performance
- 100
- Accessibility
- 100
- Best Practices
- 100
- SEO
Average scores across 5 live, published client and personal sites. Recorded April 2026.
The portfolio
Sites I've built.
Five live, published client and personal sites. Open any URL to visit, or hit verify to re-run the audit live. The scores below come from real Google Lighthouse mobile audits, not screenshots.
| Site | Perf | A11y | Best Practices | SEO | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| This site billbergquist.dev | 99 | 100 | 100 | 100 | verify |
| ARED Furniture Repair aredrepair.com | 99 | 100 | 100 | 100 | verify |
| Critter Care critter-care.com | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | verify |
| CreatiCalc creaticalc.com | 98 | 100 | 100 | 100 | verify |
| Sports Shortcuts sportsshortcuts.com | 99 | 100 | 100 | 100 | verify |
Verify the claim
Test your own site.
Enter a URL and I'll run a real Google Lighthouse audit. You'll see how your site stacks up against the portfolio above.
Powered by Google PageSpeed Insights (mobile strategy).
What this means
Why speed matters for your business.
Search visibility
Google indexes the mobile version of your site first, and Core Web Vitals (the speed and stability signals behind a Performance score) feed into how pages rank. A high score doesn't guarantee a top spot. A mobile score in the 30s makes every other SEO effort harder.
Conversion
Bounce rate climbs sharply as pages slow down: Google's own research shows it roughly doubles between one and five seconds. A slow homepage quietly costs you a chunk of the visitors who would otherwise stay long enough to call, book, or fill out a form.
Accessibility
About a quarter of US adults have a disability that affects how they use the web. A 100 means screen readers, keyboard navigation, and color contrast all work. A 70 means a real share of your audience lands on your page and bounces because something is broken for them.
Trust
A slow, jittery site quietly tells visitors you don't care about the details. For a service business where the site is your storefront, that's the wrong first impression. Customers don't blame the developer. They blame the business and check someone else.
Scores aren't the whole business. They're a useful signal that the site is built cleanly.
Methodology
What it measures.
Scores come from Google Lighthouse, the auditing tool built into Chrome. You can verify any score yourself in the tester above or at pagespeed.web.dev.
Test conditions
- Mobile emulation
- Throttled 4G connection
- 5 runs per site, averaged
What each score means
- Performance: How fast it loads and stays steady on screen.
- Accessibility: How well it works for screen readers and assistive tech.
- Best Practices: How cleanly the site is built under the hood.
- SEO: How easy it is for search engines to read.
Why it matters
- Slow sites lose people, especially on phones.
- Accessible sites reach more of your audience.
- A high score doesn't guarantee rankings, but a low one makes everything harder.
Scores can vary slightly between runs. The point isn't a perfect number; it's whether the site is fast, usable, and built cleanly.
FAQ
Common questions.
What's considered a good Lighthouse score?
90 or higher in each category is the green-zone Google considers fast. Most small business sites land between 40 and 60 on mobile performance because they're built on bloated platforms with too many third-party scripts. Anything under 50 is genuinely costing you customers. Sites I build target 95 or higher across the board.
Why mobile-only? Why throttled?
Google indexes the mobile version of your site first. They've been on mobile-first indexing since 2019, so your mobile score is the one that affects your ranking. The throttling simulates a real cellular connection because that's the experience most visitors actually have. A site that scores 99 on a wired desktop and 35 on a throttled phone is failing the audience that matters.
Do these scores actually affect my Google ranking?
Yes, indirectly. Google has confirmed Core Web Vitals (LCP, CLS, INP) are ranking signals, and the Performance score rolls those up. A site at 95 doesn't automatically rank higher than a site at 70, but a site at 35 will rank lower than it should because Google deprioritizes slow mobile experiences. SEO and Accessibility scores don't directly affect ranking but they correlate with the technical health Google cares about.
Why do scores fluctuate between runs?
Performance is the only category that varies. Network conditions, ad bid timing, and third-party scripts loading at different speeds all affect the result. Variance is usually 5 to 10 points either direction. Accessibility, Best Practices, and SEO are deterministic and don't change between runs.
What if my site is on Wix, Squarespace, or WordPress?
You can audit it the same way. Most platform sites land in the 40s on mobile performance because they include CSS, JavaScript, and tracking scripts you can't remove. You can sometimes squeeze 10 to 15 points out by removing apps and using lighter image sizes, but the platform ceiling is real. WordPress sites with caching and a lean theme can do better.
Can I improve my own score without rebuilding?
Sometimes. Compress your images, remove unused tracking scripts, and lazy-load anything below the fold. Those three alone usually buy you 10 to 20 points on Performance. Accessibility, SEO, and Best Practices are easier to fix without code changes if you can edit your CMS settings (alt text, meta descriptions, heading structure). For a structural rebuild, the diminishing returns kick in around 70.
How often should I re-test my scores?
Once a quarter is plenty for a stable site. After any change to your hosting, theme, or major plugins, run it again. If you're tracking active improvement work, weekly during the project, then monthly to catch regressions. The free hand-audit covers all of this on a one-off basis if you'd rather have someone else look.
What now
Want a site that feels this fast?
I build fast, accessible websites for small businesses across Denver and the Front Range. They score well on Google's audits, but more importantly, they feel better on real phones.