Combining Storyblok, Lighthouse & Squeaky for a data-driven approach to site performance

If you work building or improving websites for a living then you’ll know what an important tool Google Lighthouse, with its red, orange, and green circles, has become.

The goal is to achieve as close to 100 points as possible, across four categories: Performance, Accessibility, Best Practices, and SEO (or five if you’re also scoring a progressive web application).

By using the right technology and approaches, combined with a great CMS like Storyblok, you should be able to turn those circles green, but your hard work can quickly be undone when you start adding third-party scripts or dependencies.

In this article, we’ll look at how and why our team of performance-focused Storyblok specialists at take it_ are combing Storyblok, with a new tool called Squeaky, to provide high-performing sites with the most common of all third-party tools: analytics.

Section titled Why Lighthouse scores matter Why Lighthouse scores matter

Google’s Lighthouse score is an amazing way to evaluate the likely success of a website, however you might be asking yourself, why? Google breaks down each category in detail, but generally speaking, websites that perform well in Lighthouse audits are likely to provide a better user experience overall. Websites that load quickly, have good accessibility, follow coding best practices, and are easy to navigate, are more likely to keep users engaged and happy on the site.

Section titled Why Storyblok gives you a head-start Why Storyblok gives you a head-start

At take it_ we see the Lighthouse score as foundational to measuring our success when building sites for our clients, and using Storyblok always gives us a head-start.

As a CMS, Storyblok prioritizes speed and efficiency. By using a headless approach, they allow separation between the frontend and backend, which means they can be optimized independently, typically resulting in faster website load times. Not only this, but Storyblok’s architecture allows for modern technologies such as a CDN and intelligent caching to further improve your website’s performance.

So, overall Google’s Lighthouse tool offers a great way to check that you’re site is built on the right foundations, and by using Storyblok, combined with great development practices, you’re in a strong position from the get-go. But this only tells us part of the story, and if you really want to analyze your audience, traffic, and user experience in more detail, you’ll need to use an analytics product.

Section titled Don’t let analytics impact your performance-wins Don’t let analytics impact your performance-wins

Most websites will want to use analytics tooling to measure and monitor activity on their site, but as performance fans, we really wanted to find the right product to pair with our Storyblok builds. There are some amazing tools out there, but for the best performance technically, and from a user experience perspective more broadly, we went for a new and privacy-first analytics solution called Squeaky.

Like most third-party analytics scripts, Squeaky can be loaded after your page content has been rendered, meaning there is no discernible impact on your user experience or Lighthouse scores. Where they differ, is in their privacy-friendly approach that avoids the use of cookies or IP tracking, paired with advanced functionality, like session recording that doesn’t capture any sensitive data from your visitors.

The privacy benefits are awesome, but what we think gives Squeaky and other privacy-centric analytics products an edge, is that you don’t need to interrupt your user’s experience with cookie banners. Measuring your site performance should mean prioritising the experience for users themselves, and cookie banners and pop-ups hugely take away from a user's first impression of your site and brand. With Squeaky your visitors can engage with your content faster, and counterintuitively you’ll capture better analytics data too.

Section titled Conclusion Conclusion

Achieving a high Lighthouse score can set you on the path towards providing a great user experience and by using a CMS like Storyblok you’ll have a huge head start. The next step in optimizing your user experience and driving business growth is to incorporate third-party analytics, potentially jeopardizing your performance and user experience gains.

That's where Squeaky comes in, providing valuable insights into website performance and user experience while maintaining a privacy-first approach. By choosing the right combination of tools and approaches, web developers can create high-performance, data-driven websites that delight users and provide valuable insights for their owners.