Reporting Tools Like Google PageSpeed, GT Metrix and Pingdom Are Worthless

Over the years, I have had clients come to me after testing out their sites using a tool like Google PageSpeed, GT Metrix, or Pingdom and wonder why their scores are so low and they want it “fixed”. In most cases, this can be costly because it requires a lot of tweaking which simply takes a lot of time to do. And some of the areas will just never score well for a variety of reasons – not always reasons within our control. Yes, there are metrics that matter. We have to find the balance, though….take a look at what we can control and what is worth our time, energy and money to do. What is the return on investment here? In many cases, there just isn’t any.

Google PageSpeed test uses methods that are not based around meaningful metrics to users or site owners. ~ Thirty Bees

The other factor here is, say, I optimize all your images and then you load up more and don’t optimize them, there goes your score. Of course, there are ways to automate this specific task but my point is if you are working on your own site, you need to understand everything that impacts a specific area so you can avoid issues in the future. I’ve worked my butt of to improve scores for clients who really felt it was important only to have them do something in a different area (or so it seemed) that impacted what I did and negatively impacted their score as a result after I was done.

Someone recently shared a theory they had about when we get hung up around our business name or our title…things of this nature. They said it shows there is a block to prosperity. It really resonated with me. I think it falls into the same category as spending time checking email 30 times a day or basically shuffling papers all day instead of engaging in activities that generate revenue. I feel like this is the same thing. You can tweak yoursite until the cows come home but, at the end of the day, that isn’t necessarily going to generate revenue for you unless you stay focused on the things that really matter and you manage your time around those tasks.