Google uses your website’s speed as a ranking signal — a slow site can quietly cost you search positions without you ever knowing. The good news is that Google provides a free tool to check it, and you don’t need any technical knowledge to use it.
Google PageSpeed Insights
PageSpeed Insights checks how quickly your website loads and how well it performs on both desktop and mobile. It gives you a score out of 100 for each, and flags the specific things slowing it down.
To run the test: go to pagespeed.web.dev, type in your website address, and click Analyse. The results appear within about 30 seconds — no account needed.
Google scores pages as Good (90–100), Needs improvement (50–89), or Poor (below 50). Most well-built websites score 90+ on desktop and 70+ on mobile.
Which score matters most?
The tool shows two scores: one for desktop (someone on a computer) and one for mobile (someone on a phone). The mobile score is the one to focus on. Google now looks at the mobile version of your site first when deciding where to rank you — so if your mobile score is poor, your search positions will suffer regardless of how the desktop version performs.
Mobile scores are nearly always lower than desktop scores — that’s normal and expected. A mobile score above 70 is good. Below 50 means the site is likely slow enough that visitors are leaving before it finishes loading.
What to do with the results
If your existing site scores poorly, that’s useful information — it helps explain why you might not be appearing as prominently in Google search results as you’d expect. A new site built to modern standards should score well on both measures from day one.
If you already have a site built by NeoBookworm, you’re welcome to run the test and check your scores. All NeoBookworm sites are built to load quickly on mobile — if something doesn’t look right, just get in touch.
Why this tool specifically?
There are plenty of tools that claim to audit your website, and many are designed to alarm you with a long list of problems so you’ll buy something. PageSpeed Insights is made by Google itself — it measures the exact things Google cares about when deciding where to rank your site. If your mobile score is in the green, you’re in good shape on the factor that matters most.
How NeoBookworm.uk scores
For what it’s worth, here’s how this site performs when tested:
The mobile performance score of 95 is in Google’s top “Good” band — and well above the threshold that affects search rankings. The slight gap between desktop and mobile is entirely normal; phones have slower processors and connections than computers, so mobile scores are almost always a few points lower.
Every NeoBookworm site is built to score well on mobile from day one — for a fixed one-off fee.