One way to think about Core Web Vitals (CWV) is like a compass; they guide you towards creating a high-quality, user-friendly website. But what exactly are Core Web Vitals, and why do they matter for your website?
Core Web Vitals entails a metrics set for evaluating the quality of user experience on your website, focusing on loading speed, responsiveness, and visual stability. It includes the First Input Delay (FID), Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). Healthy Core Web Vitals also help with your SEO.
Let’s explore more on this concept and how it affects your SEO. We’ll start with definitions and proceed to the importance of core web vitals and how to improve them.
What Are Core Web Vitals?
Always aim to provide a great user experience on your pages. Core Web Vitals can help you achieve that goal, but what is it?
It’s a singular term that Google created for a set of metrics. The metrics help measure and evaluate how quickly and easily users can interact with your website. Visual stability is also part of this metrics package.
Google further introduced the term “Page Experience” as an all-encompassing umbrella for terms such as mobile-friendliness, safe browsing, HTTPS security protocols, and intrusive interstitials.
Please note that responsiveness across devices, from desktop to mobile, and various browsers fall under Core Web Vitals (LCP, FID, CLS).
Your desktop core web vitals could be perfect and it could still load slowly and be unstable on mobile devices. Google advises web admins to prioritize both desktop and mobile Core Web Vitals.
The Three Components of Core Web Vitals
1. LCP – Largest Contentful Paint
LCP measures how fast your website loads, marking when the largest element in your viewport becomes visible to users.
How would you feel if you tried visiting a webpage and it took over six seconds for anything to show up on your screen? It’s frustrating.
2. FID – First Input Delay
This component measures the time between a user’s first interaction with your website (clicking a link or tapping on a button) and the browser’s response to that action.
Imagine tapping on a button to fill out a contact form and waiting several seconds for the form to pop up. It’s not the ideal user experience.
A high FID score means a delay in processing the user’s request, leading to a poor user experience.
3. CLS – Cumulative Layout Shift
This metric measures visual stability by checking how many elements on the page move around while it’s loading.
Imagine trying to click on a button or link on a website, but due to late-loading images or ads, the button moves down, and you end up clicking on something else.
It can be frustrating and lead to a poor user experience. Visual stability is crucial for a smooth and easy-to-use website.
How Important Is Core Web Vitals?
At Adopt the Web, we consider Core Web Vitals an invaluable tool for analyzing and improving website performance. A bad Core Web Vitals score can negatively impact your website’s user experience and lead to a higher bounce rate.
For example, a high LCP score means your pages are taking too much time to load, so users often bounce. It tells you that you need to minify your code, optimize images, and reduce server response time.
A high FID score means you need to improve the processing speed of user requests by optimizing JavaScript code or reducing third-party scripts.
A high CLS score means you need to prioritize loading essential elements first and avoid any sudden layout shifts that can disrupt the user experience.
Because of this, checking your Core Web Vitals empowers you to improve the general user experience, making your pages load faster and more efficiently.
Not only that, but Google has made it clear that they will prioritize websites with good Core Web Vitals scores as a priority ranking factor. It’s very important to pay attention to these metrics if you want traffic from online searches.
Does Core Web Vitals Affect SEO?
As mentioned before, Google asserted that its search ranking algorithm prioritizes websites with favorable Core Web Vitals scores. Having a good score can positively impact your website’s visibility and potentially attract higher rankings.
Moreover, a better user experience can also engage visitors more, attracting longer visit durations and lower bounce rates. Google considers these factors when determining a website’s quality.
How to Check Core Web Vitals
You can do it on your website by using Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool or the Core Web Vitals report in Google Search Console. These tools break down your website’s performance based on real user data.
They also offer improvement suggestions, making it easier for you to fix any issues. Learn more from this guide on how to use Google Search Console for SEO.
Chrome DevTools are also handy for checking your Core Web Vitals. In the Performance tab, you will find a summary of your website’s LCP, FID, and CLS scores.
How to Improve Core Web Vitals
If you find that your website has low scores for any of the Core Web Vitals metrics, you can improve them with several steps, including:
1. Optimize LCP
Large Contentful Paint (LCP) measures your website’s loading performance and is currently the most important core web vitals metric. Ensure your website’s main content is visible within two seconds of loading.
Start by identifying the LCP elements behind the largest portion of your website’s loading time. These could be images, videos, or other elements with large file sizes.
From optimizing fonts to minifying JavaScript and CSS, there are several techniques you can use to speed up your website’s loading time. Some of them include:
- Compress images with tools like TinyPNG or Kraken.io without compromising their quality.
- Use lazy loading so only the visible parts of a page load first, and other elements load as the user scrolls down. Only necessary content loads initially, improving the LCP.
- Eliminate unnecessary characters, such as spaces and line breaks, from your website’s code to reduce its file size and improve load times.
Consider using the best free WordPress Plugins for Speed Optimization.
2. Improve FID
First-input Delay (FID) measures your website’s interactivity. It’s the time it takes when someone first clicks on something on your page to when the browser begins processing that interaction.
To improve FID, you must reduce any delays in your website’s responsiveness. Here are some steps you can take:
- Minimize JavaScript execution time by eliminating unused or unnecessary code and optimizing existing code.
- Browser caching stores frequently used files locally in the user’s browser, reducing load times for repeat visitors.
- Simplify third-party scripts and remove any that are not essential for your website’s functionality. If they take a long time to load, these scripts can significantly impact FID.
- Improve your server response time with a Content Delivery Network (CDN) or upgrade to a faster web hosting provider.
- Hire a WordPress Speed optimization service: here’s how to choose.
3 Enhance CLS
To improve CLS, you must ensure that all page elements have defined dimensions and don’t change without warning. Here are some steps you can take:
- Use CSS to define element sizes and positions instead of relying solely on JavaScript.
- Preload images with the correct dimensions so they don’t shift while loading.
- Avoid inserting new content above existing content, as it can cause unexpected layout shifts.
- Test your website design across different devices and screen sizes to ensure elements are stable and consistent.
- Reserve space for ad elements and dynamically loaded content so the page layout doesn’t shift when they load.
- Regularly monitor your CLS scores and address any issues immediately to maintain a stable user experience.
Rely on Adopt the Web for Website Optimization
At Adopt the Web, we’ll optimize your website because we are skilled in identifying and fixing performance issues. Our team specializes in WordPress optimization and we have vast experience improving the Core Web Vitals of countless businesses.
Our optimization process includes:
- Analyzing your current website performance.
- Identifying areas for improvement.
- Implementing targeted solutions to boost your site’s speed and stability.
We improve your website’s performance by prioritizing user experience. We will help you achieve high scores on all Core Web Vitals metrics, including CLS, by sticking to the best practices for UX design.
Contact us now to resolve your web speed issues.
