Hitting a Lighthouse Score of 100: What It Takes

Set expectations first

A 100 score on every category is rarely necessary. Google ranks pages with scores in the 70s all the time. The point of the exercise is to find easy wins, not to obsess over a number.

We'll aim for 95+ across the board, which is realistic for most marketing and content sites.

Performance: the big four

Optimize the LCP image. Defer non-critical JS. Self-host fonts. Reserve space for dynamic content. These four moves typically take a Performance score from 60 to 95.

Run Lighthouse in incognito mode without extensions for accurate numbers.

Accessibility: easy wins

Add alt text to every image. Make sure every form input has a label. Check color contrast with a tool. Use semantic HTML (header, nav, main, article).

These changes also help SEO. Google increasingly favors accessible pages.

SEO: the basics

Unique title and description on every page. Valid robots.txt. Mobile-friendly viewport meta tag. Canonical URLs.

If you nail these, your SEO score is 100 without trying.