Lighthouse 90+ playbook

Google’s Lighthouse score isn’t vanity. Pages scoring under 50 get demoted in mobile search. Here’s the 5-step playbook to get to 90+.

1. Image optimization (biggest single win)

80% of slow sites are slow because of images. Fixes:

• Compress every image before upload. TinyPNG (free) or Squoosh for batch.
• Use WebP format instead of PNG/JPG. 30-50% smaller, same quality.
• Lazy load below-fold images. LiteSpeed Cache does this automatically.
• Set explicit width + height on every <img> tag. Prevents layout shift (CLS).

2. LiteSpeed Cache settings

If you’re on Hostinger (LiteSpeed enabled), turn these on:

• Page cache → ON
• Browser cache → ON
• Image optimization → all enabled
• Minify CSS + JS + HTML → ON
• Combine CSS → ON
• Lazy load images → ON
• Critical CSS → generate

This alone moves most sites from 40 → 75.

3. Defer unused JavaScript

Plugins load JS even on pages that don’t use them. Use Asset CleanUp (free) to disable specific plugin JS on pages that don’t need it.

Example: don’t load WooCommerce JS on the homepage if your homepage doesn’t show products.

4. Fonts

Self-host fonts (don’t load from Google Fonts CDN — adds 100-300ms). Or use font-display: swap; in your CSS so text renders immediately while the custom font loads.

Limit to 2 font families max. Each family = ~50-100KB.

5. Reduce server response time

If your TTFB (time to first byte) is over 800ms, the server is slow. Options:

• Upgrade hosting plan (cheap shared hosting is slow)
• Use a CDN (Cloudflare free tier works)
• Disable unused plugins (every plugin adds queries)

How to measure

Test on PageSpeed Insights — use the MOBILE score, not desktop. Mobile is what Google ranks on.

Re-test after every change. If a fix moves the needle, keep it. If it doesn’t, undo it.