If a marketer has ever shown you a scary-looking PageSpeed report and told you your website is in trouble, be careful.
My own website currently has a performance score of 33.
That sounds awful.
Except when I actually load the site, it comes up almost immediately.
That is exactly why I think plumbers need to understand what PageSpeed scores actually mean, what they do not mean, and when they become a distraction from the things that really grow your business.
I break this down in more detail in the video below, including a live test of my own website.
Watch the full video on YouTube →
Page Speed Is Important, But It Is Not the Goal
Your website has a job.
It needs to convince a potential customer that your plumbing company is trustworthy, professional, and capable of solving their problem.
That usually means including things like:
- Photos
- Videos
- Customer reviews
- Service information
- Financing options
- Calls to action
- Trust signals
- Maps, forms, and other useful website features
All of those things require data to load.
Naturally, as you add more useful content and functionality to a website, you can also make the page heavier.
That does not automatically mean the website is bad.
The question should not be:
“What is my PageSpeed score?”
The better question is:
“Is my website giving potential customers a good experience and helping turn them into leads?”
Those are very different questions.
The Problem With Chasing a Perfect Score
Tools like Google PageSpeed Insights and GTmetrix can be useful.
They can identify legitimate technical problems.
But they can also produce reports filled with warnings, red scores, and recommendations that look much more dramatic than the actual user experience.
That creates an opportunity for marketers.
Someone can run your website through one of these tools, show you a low number, and immediately create the impression that something is seriously wrong.
Then they offer to fix it.
The problem is that improving the score can sometimes mean removing things that were actually helping the customer.
For example, you might remove:
- A helpful video
- A review widget
- Large before-and-after photos
- Tracking or conversion tools
- Interactive website features
Your score might improve.
But your website might become less persuasive.
That is not a win.
Your Customer Does Not Know Your PageSpeed Score
The homeowner visiting your website does not know whether Google gave you a 33, 63, or 93.
They care about things like:
“Did the website load?”
“Does this company look legitimate?”
“Do they provide the service I need?”
“Do other homeowners trust them?”
“Can I easily call or schedule?”
If the site works well for the person actually using it, that matters a lot more than obsessing over a single score in a diagnostic tool.
Google is also trying to provide its users with good results.
That means user behavior and user experience matter.
If people land on your website, engage with it, find the information they need, and ultimately become customers, those are meaningful outcomes.
Do not sacrifice those outcomes just so a reporting tool can turn from red to green.
Compare Yourself to the Actual Market
Another problem I see with PageSpeed sales pitches is the lack of context.
Someone shows you your score and says:
“This is bad.”
My immediate question is:
Compared to what?
What do the other plumbing companies ranking in your market score?
What does the company sitting above you in Google score?
What about the company getting more calls than everyone else?
If every successful competitor in the market is sitting between 30 and 50, then your score of 40 suddenly looks a lot less catastrophic.
Metrics without context can be misleading.
If someone is going to tell you that your website performance is hurting your business, they should be able to demonstrate that rather than simply pointing at a red number.
My Website Has a Performance Score of 33
This is why I decided to use my own website as the example.
At the time I recorded the video, the Mammoth for Plumbers website had a performance score of 33.
If you only looked at that number, you might assume the website barely functions.
So I opened the actual website.
It loaded almost instantly.
Then I tested it again in a fresh browser.
Same result.
And most importantly, the website generates leads.
That does not mean every website with a score of 33 is fine.
A genuinely slow website can absolutely create problems.
If someone clicks your site and stares at a blank screen for several seconds, you have an issue.
But there is a massive difference between:
“Your website is noticeably slow for real users.”
and
“A testing tool gave your website a low score.”
Those are not automatically the same thing.
Focus on the Metrics That Affect the Business
For a plumbing company, the website is ultimately part of a much larger marketing system.
Your website may help generate leads directly.
It may also influence people who originally discovered you through:
- Google Maps
- Local Services Ads
- Google Ads
- Organic search
- AI search tools
- Social media
- Referrals
- Other Google search features
The website helps build trust throughout that process.
So the real questions are things like:
- Are you getting enough qualified leads?
- Are visitors converting?
- Are people calling?
- Are people booking?
- Does your website make your company look like the obvious choice?
- Are you showing up when homeowners search for your services?
Those are the numbers worth obsessing over.
Page speed is one piece of that system.
It should not become the system.
When You Should Actually Worry About Page Speed
None of this means you should ignore a slow website.
If the site genuinely takes too long to become usable, fix it.
If images are enormous and poorly optimized, fix them.
If technical problems are causing pages to break, fix them.
If customers are leaving because they cannot use the website, absolutely fix it.
But optimize with the customer in mind.
Do not strip everything useful off the website because you are trying to chase a perfect score.
The goal is not to build the fastest empty page on the internet.
The goal is to build a website that loads reasonably well, creates trust, explains why someone should choose your company, and generates business.
Watch the Full Breakdown
In the video, I walk through the PageSpeed issue in more detail, explain why these scores are so commonly used as a marketing sales tactic, and show the real-world loading speed of my own 33-score website.
Watch the full PageSpeed video here →
If you own a plumbing company and want someone to take a broader look at your marketing, Mammoth Marketing offers free consultations specifically for plumbers.
We will look at where you are today, what you are trying to accomplish, and what the next logical steps are for growing your company.
You can schedule a consultation at mammothforplumbers.com.
Just remember: before you spend a bunch of money fixing a scary red number, make sure that number is actually causing a problem.
Tyler Williams
Owner, Mammoth Marketing
