The world of SEO is always changing. The constant evolution of SEO is evident from Google’s constant update of its algorithms. Amid that, evolving your strategies with the evolving dynamics is key to offering great user experience consistently.
Have you ever wondered what is the biggest update of Google to make the search outcomes better? The biggest update encompasses “Core Web Vitals,” which impact how websites rank with Google. These metrics (important for better SEO performance) are experience-based metrics regarding the pages that are loading, their load speed, interactivity, and visual stability.
In this blog, UnityDiv will discuss in detail the secret to better SEO rankings through core web vitals. Let’s explore in depth;
What Are Core Web Vitals?
The core web vitals are a group of three specific metrics from Google to measure user experience on a website. It focuses on metrics related to loading performance, interactivity as well as visual stability- aspects of your website which directly affect how your user perceives your website. Google has these metrics as one of their new page experience ranking factors, which means how good your site ranks in search results.
Here are the three key core web vitals metrics that represent how website is performing in terms of user experience and can be done to sustain high search ranking:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
- First Contentful Paint (FCP)
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
Importance of Core Web Vitals Matter for SEO
Core Web Vital became one of the ranking factors in Google’s algorithm in 2021, showcasing that the sites with good performance on these metrics will have a better chance of ranking higher in Google’s search results. In comparison, the websites that don’t surpass the necessary benchmarks for these metrics could go down in rankings.
For instance, Core Web Vitals LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) decides when the last element on a page ( let’s say, an image or piece of text) becomes visible to the user by loading. LCP delay can result in a bad user experience and cause much higher bounce rates. According to research, a page that doesn’t load in 2.5 seconds can lead to an increase of up to 32 percent in bounce rates, affecting website performance in a negative way. For that reason, it is really important to quicken the loading times, which directly influence core web vitals metrics.
Indeed, If sites work on improving these metrics, they can get increased user engagement, lower bounce rates, and improved conversion rates. All these aspects will ultimately improve the SEO performance of your website. After all, sites that load in under 2.5 seconds are 70% more likely to deliver greater engagement as compared to those sites which do not.
Key Three Metrics of Core Web Vitals
Now, let’s just take a closer look at the three essential core web vitals metrics:
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
Core web vitals LCP measures when the largest visible content element on a page is loaded. It could be an image, a video, or a text block. If it takes a really long time to load, then it will leave a bad impression on the user, which will increase the bouncing rate. Ideally, the recommended core web vitals LCP time is 2.5 seconds or less. Users leave a site faster when the LCP is slow, believing that website is sluggish.
First Contentful Paint (FCP)
FCP is the first visible element to appear on the page. This can be text, images, and other sorts of materials. A high core web vitals FCP tells us that your page takes time to load, which is not very good for the users. According to Google, FCP should be less than 1.8 seconds, for FCP time to ensure a good user experience.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
CLS measures the visual stability of a webpage. It is to track how much the page layout shifts while it loads. A high core web vitals CLS score is frustrating for users since they try to click buttons or interact with content, but the layout changes right under them. A good core web vitals CLS score should be below 0.1, meaning that the page doesn’t move while loading.
Core Web Vitals Test
Improving the SEO of the website depends on how well it is performing on core web vitals. For that, one can conduct a core web vitals test. In this regard, several tools can help you test your website’s core web vitals.
Google PageSpeed Insights
With this tool, you know exactly how your site performs, featuring core web vitals metrics like LCP, FCP, and CLS, besides tons of other metrics such as average page size, average blocking time, redirects, content size, redirect chains, and indexability. It also provides actionable recommendations to instantaneously enable these scores.
Google Search Console
Google’s Search Console has a core web vitals report that informs you how your website performs on different devices. It shifts the scores into categories, such as “Good,” “Needs Improvement” or “Poor.”
Lighthouse
Another Google tool, which is Lighthouse, offers a more detailed analysis of your website’s performance from the analytics side, including core web vitals. You have a Core Web Vitals test that will show you the places you need to improve.
What is Core Web Vitals INP?
In March 2024, Core Web Vitals FID (First Input Delay) was replaced with Core Web Vitals INP (Interaction to Next Paint). Now, what is this latest change? Core Web Vitals INP assesses how long your page takes to react to user input like clicking a button or filling out a form. It, thereby, ensures fast and responsive interaction between users and your website.
How To Improve Your Site’s Core Web Vitals?
You must delegate your task to UnityDiv professionals to improve your site’s core web vitals. Here’s how we help you improve that:
- We optimize and compress your images to quicken load times.
- By reducing JavaScript, we work on improving core web vital FID as it defers unnecessary scripts.
- To avoid core web vitals CLS, we keep the dimensions of all your media elements (images, videos, ads) defined. By doing so, we prevent layout shifts from loading.
- We improve your website’s server response time by switching to a faster hosting provider or a Content Delivery Network (CDN).
Are you interested in improving your SEO rankings? contact us now.
