PageSpeed Insights measures how fast and responsive your website is. But here’s the thing most people miss: your PageSpeed score isn’t just a vanity number. It directly affects whether visitors stay or leave, whether Google ranks you higher or lower, and whether people buy from you or abandon their cart.
A one-second delay in page load time can drop conversions by 7%. That’s real money. Squizzie brings your PageSpeed data into your reports alongside your revenue and traffic data so you can see the connection — not just a score in isolation.
Before You Start
No Google account connection required. PageSpeed Insights uses a public API, so it works even if you haven’t connected a Google account. However, if you’ve already set up your Google connection through the Google Integrations guide, PageSpeed will work alongside your other Google services seamlessly.
Enable the feature toggle. Go to Tracksies > Settings > Features, find the Squizzie tile, and make sure PageSpeed Insights is toggled on.
The Adjusted Score
This is one of the most useful things Squizzie does with your PageSpeed data.
Google’s raw performance score treats all scripts equally — your code and third-party code are judged the same. But if you have a chat widget, analytics tracking, a Facebook pixel, payment processing scripts, and a cookie consent banner, those external scripts are dragging your score down through no fault of your own.
Squizzie calculates an adjusted score that shows what your performance would be without third-party impact. For example:
> Your score is 62, but an estimated 18 points come from third-party scripts. Your actual site performance is closer to 80.
This matters because it tells you where to focus. If the gap between your raw score and adjusted score is large, the biggest improvement would come from reducing third-party scripts — not from optimising your own code. And if your adjusted score is already good, you know your site itself is performing well despite the weight of external tools.
What Counts as Third-Party?
Squizzie identifies scripts from a wide range of known third-party services, including:
- Chat widgets — Tidio, Tawk.to, Crisp, Intercom, LiveChat, Olark, Drift
- Analytics and tracking — Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Hotjar, Microsoft Clarity, Yandex Metrica
- Advertising pixels — Facebook/Meta Pixel, Google Ads, LinkedIn Insight, Twitter/X Ads, TikTok Pixel, Pinterest
- Marketing tools — HubSpot, Klaviyo, Mailchimp
- Payment processors — Stripe, PayPal
- Other embeds — YouTube, Vimeo, Google Maps, Google Fonts, Adobe Fonts, reCAPTCHA
If your adjusted score is significantly higher than your raw score, it means these external scripts are the primary drag on your performance. That’s useful information — it means your site itself is well-built, and the slow-down is coming from tools you may or may not be able to remove.
Core Web Vitals Explained
Google uses three specific metrics — called Core Web Vitals — to measure real-world user experience. These are the metrics that actually affect your search rankings.
LCP: Largest Contentful Paint
What it measures: How quickly the main content of your page becomes visible.
Target: Under 2.5 seconds.
In plain terms: when someone loads your page, LCP measures how long they stare at a blank or partially-loaded screen before the biggest piece of content (usually a hero image or main heading) appears. The faster this happens, the faster your site feels.
INP: Interaction to Next Paint
What it measures: How quickly your site responds when someone taps a button, clicks a link, or types in a form.
Target: Under 200 milliseconds.
This is about responsiveness. If someone clicks “Add to Cart” and nothing happens for half a second, the site feels sluggish. INP captures that lag. Heavy JavaScript, complex page layouts, and too many competing scripts are the usual culprits.
CLS: Cumulative Layout Shift
What it measures: How much things jump around on the page while it’s loading.
Target: Under 0.1.
You’ve experienced this: you’re about to tap a link, and suddenly the page shifts because an image loaded or an ad appeared, and you accidentally tap something else. That’s layout shift. It’s infuriating for users and Google penalises it. The most common causes are images without specified dimensions, ads that load late, and web fonts that swap in after the page renders.
The Three Buckets
Squizzie doesn’t just show you a list of issues — it sorts them into three categories based on who can actually fix them.
Things You Can Fix Yourself
These are improvements you can make without a developer, usually by installing a plugin:
- Image optimisation — Install an image plugin like ShortPixel, Smush, or Imagify to automatically compress and convert images to modern formats
- Caching — Install a caching plugin like WP Rocket, LiteSpeed Cache, or W3 Total Cache
- Minification — A caching plugin with minification (WP Rocket, Autoptimize) can combine and compress your CSS and JavaScript files
- Resource hints — Most performance plugins handle preconnect hints automatically
Things You Need a Developer For
These are technical issues that require code changes or deeper expertise:
- Render-blocking resources — Your theme or plugins load CSS and JavaScript in a way that delays the page from appearing. A developer can defer or async these scripts.
- Large DOM size — Your page has too many HTML elements, usually caused by page builders creating deeply nested structures. Simplifying page layouts helps.
- Unused CSS/JavaScript — Stylesheets and scripts are being loaded that the page doesn’t actually use. A developer can audit and remove them.
- Layout shift elements — Content is moving around as the page loads. A developer needs to add explicit dimensions to images and embeds.
- Server response time — Your hosting is slow. This might mean upgrading your hosting plan or switching to managed WordPress hosting.
- Font loading — Web fonts are blocking the page from rendering. Adding
font-display: swapto font loading fixes this.
Things That Are Not Your Fault
These are the third-party scripts identified in your adjusted score calculation. You can’t optimise code you don’t control. Your options are:
- Remove the third-party tool entirely (if you don’t really need it)
- Accept the performance cost as the price of having that feature
- Look for lighter alternatives (e.g., a simpler chat widget)
Squizzie identifies each third-party script by name, so you can see exactly which tools are costing you the most performance points.
Setting Up an API Key
PageSpeed Insights works without any configuration — Squizzie uses the public API. But the public API has a low daily limit of 25 requests. If you’re generating multiple reports or testing changes frequently, you’ll hit that limit quickly.
Adding an API key increases your daily quota to 25,000 requests. Here’s how:
- Go to the Google Cloud Console
- Make sure you’re in the same project you used for your other Google integrations (or any project — the API key doesn’t need to be in the same project as your OAuth credentials)
- Go to APIs & Services > Library
- Search for PageSpeed Insights API and click Enable (if you haven’t already)
- Go to APIs & Services > Credentials
- Click + Create Credentials > API Key
- Copy the API key
- In Squizzie, go to Settings > Integrations > PageSpeed section
- Paste the API key and click Save
Optional but recommended: Restrict your API key to only the PageSpeed Insights API. In the Cloud Console, click on your API key, under “API restrictions” select “Restrict key”, and choose “PageSpeed Insights API”. This prevents misuse if the key is ever exposed.
How to Read the Recommendations
Squizzie presents PageSpeed recommendations in a digestible format. For each issue, you’ll see:
- What the issue is — in plain language, not technical jargon
- Which bucket it falls into — something you can fix, something for a developer, or a third-party issue
- What to do about it — a specific, actionable recommendation
- Estimated impact — how many points this issue is costing you
Focus on the high-impact items first. A single issue costing you 15 points is worth more attention than five issues costing 2 points each.
Cross-References
Squizzie looks for connections between your PageSpeed data and other metrics:
- Bounce rate correlation: If your bounce rate is high AND your page speed is poor, these are likely connected. Slow pages drive visitors away before they engage.
- Mobile performance: If more than half your search impressions (from Search Console) are mobile, Squizzie will highlight the importance of your mobile PageSpeed score — because mobile speed directly affects mobile search rankings.
- Revenue impact: A slow site paired with strong traffic but low conversion rate suggests performance is costing you sales.
Data Caching
PageSpeed results are cached for 6 hours. Running a PageSpeed test makes a real-time request to Google’s servers, which actually loads and analyses your page. This takes a few seconds and uses API quota, so caching prevents unnecessary repeat tests.
If you’ve made changes to your site and want fresh results, wait for the cache to expire or clear the Squizzie cache from the settings page.
Common Questions
Is the PageSpeed score the same as Google’s PageSpeed website?
Yes. Squizzie uses the same API that powers pagespeed.web.dev. The raw scores are identical. What Squizzie adds is the adjusted score, the three-bucket categorisation, and the cross-references with your other business data.
My score is different on mobile and desktop. Which one matters more?
Both matter, but mobile is more important for most businesses. Google uses mobile-first indexing, which means your mobile performance affects your search rankings. Squizzie tests both and shows you the results for each.
Should I aim for a perfect 100?
No. A score of 100 is nearly impossible for any real-world website that has analytics, chat tools, payment processing, or dynamic content. Anything above 80 is solid. Between 50-80 is reasonable for a site with several third-party tools. Below 50 needs attention.
My score changes every time I test. Is that normal?
Yes. PageSpeed scores can vary by a few points between tests due to server load, network conditions, and other factors. Focus on the general range rather than the exact number. If you’re consistently at 65-70, a single test showing 72 doesn’t mean you improved — and one showing 60 doesn’t mean something broke.
Will improving my PageSpeed score increase my Google ranking?
Page speed is one of many ranking factors. Improving it won’t magically put you at number one, but it removes a penalty. If your site is significantly slower than your competitors, fixing that gives you a real competitive edge. And beyond SEO, faster pages directly improve user experience and conversion rates.
What if I can’t remove the third-party scripts dragging down my score?
That’s fine. If you need Hotjar for user research, or a chat widget for customer support, or a Facebook pixel for ad tracking — keep them. The adjusted score exists specifically to help you understand which part of your score is within your control and which part is the cost of doing business with external tools.