Core Web Vitals are the new rankings factors of the latest algorithm update by Google. If you are focused on your keyword research and content strategy, you should take a step back and ensure that your website is good enough for these ranking factors that focus on technical elements. Below you will read what Core Web Vitals are and why you should care about them.
What Are Core Web Vitals?
Most website owners have seen many significant changes in Google’s algorithm through the years. Some updates create problems, and websites lose a lot of traffic overnight. However, Core Web Vitals will help them to offer a better user experience and are measurable. We can test them and determine if we need to make improvements.
They have nothing to do with content, keywords, and backlinks. Core Web Vitals are page experience signals that focus on loading time and user experience both on mobile and desktop. If you pass the test that you can find on PageSpeed Insights on each page of your site, your rankings will improve.
Google does not want slow pages because users bounce back and visit other websites. Core Web Vitals try to predict and prevent this behavior from the users by ranking slower websites down the SERP’s (Search Engine Results Page). On the other hand, a faster website will give you multiple benefits in all the parts of performance and rankings.
Google has also released other search signals in the previous years relevant to page experience that will keep affecting your rankings with Core Web Vitals. Today all the page experience signals by Google include:
- Mobile-friendly: Your website needs to have an optimized mobile version for your visitors.
- Safe-browsing: Your website shouldn’t contain any misleading content or malicious software.
- HTTPS: You need an SSL Certificate and HTTPS on all your pages.
- No Intrusives: Your pages doesn’t hide or cover the primary content.
- Core Web Vitals: Your website must load quickly, have visual stability, and allow the user to interact with the content fast.
We expect Google to add Core Web Vitals as a ranking factor in June 2021. They already provide us the right metrics to optimize our websites for these rankings factors. Also, many websites are already optimized for most page experience signals, and core web vitals will require small improvements.
Core Web Vitals Metrics
Google lets us know about the four metrics that will affect our rankings. If you scan a website page on PageSpeed Insights:
- First Contentful Paint (FCP)
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
- First Input Delay (FID)
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
First Contentful Paint (FCP) and Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
FCP and LCP refer to the loading time of the page and the time it takes to see specific elements of the page. The difference is that FCP refers to the first element while LCP refers to the largest element.
Many websites include the important information above the fold or the first part of the page. They can be details that help the user or just marketing content. In both cases, you will have problems with your rankings if they take too long to load.
Websites use both images and videos above the fold that can take over 5-6 seconds before they are available to the user. When it happens, many users bounce back and visit other sites.
Google wants to change this problem for the sites that are in the first positions of the search results, so it sets a limit of 2.5 seconds for these two metrics. It means that any elements that you display on the first frame (above the fold) must load completely in 2.5 seconds or less.
When the FCP or LCP is low, you can expect some penalties from Google depending on the loading time of these elements. On the other hand, fast-loading sites can expect better rankings.
First Input Delay (FID)
The First Input Delay or FID refers to the responsiveness of your webpage. It is another metric relevant to the loading time. It counts how much time it takes from the moment that a user interacts with your page until the browser can respond to this interaction.
For a real-life example, you can think of a form that requests contact details on your website. Once a visitor fills in the requested details and clicks submit will take some time to process the request. This time is your First Input Delay. It is the seconds it will take to process and move forward to a request from a user.
Google has figured out that it is an important metric because FID affects user experience. Many websites frustrate visitors that need more information about a topic but take too long to load a specific request.
Website owners can understand that a significant delay would also cost them leads and sales in the long-term and not just rankings. When people are willing to take action on a website, they are interested in most things that it offers.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
Cumulative Layout Shift or CLS is a metric that refers to the frequency of unexpected layout changes. These changes harm the user experience and frustrate the users.
In this category, we have various examples that are quite common. First, you can consider any popups that appear when users are reading the content of a page. Second, many elements load while you read a page or when you try to click a link. The result is to lose the right paragraph or the right link.
These issues are signs of bad user experience and a slow website page. If you have optimized all the site elements both for desktop and mobile, these unexpected layout changes are rare.
Keep in mind that there is no problem with expected layout changes. For example, a user can click a link to get information or request to see some visuals.
The CLS must be lower than 0.1 on PageSpeed Insights to pass the Core Web Vitals assessment. It is an easy metric to improve because you just need to remove or fix the elements that cause unexpected layout changes.
How To Find Errors On Core Web Vitals
While you can scan each page of your website on PageSpeed Insights, it would be time-consuming to scan hundreds or thousands of pages. Also, it is difficult to repeat this process regularly. But you can use this option when you need more information on a specific page or publish new content.
A better option is to go on Google Search Console and click Core Web Vitals on the left sidebar. You can then see a page that reports the good URLs, poor URLs, and URLs that need improvement. If you click the “Open Report” option, you can see each URL of your website and start working on the ones with problems.
It is obvious that you should focus on poor URLs first because these pages have the biggest problems. They can be too slow or have too many interruptions. The pages that need improvements have minor issues but affect the user experience as well. Google allows you to choose only the category of issues you want and has different reports for mobile and desktop.
How To Improve Core Web Vitals
Once you know that there are some errors on Core Web Vitals based on Google Search Control reports, you can take action. Hiring an SEO expert would be a good idea most of the time because these errors are technical. However, you can consider doing a few simple fixes by yourself.
You can fix FCP and LCP errors by reducing the content you include at the top of the page. If you have too many visuals or details that are not important, you can just remove them. If you include content for promotions, you can test some other placements that don’t affect SEO.
You can fix some FID errors with the following actions:
- Reduce Third-Party Code: If you use too many plugins or scripts, your site will take longer to start working. You can replace your plugins with lighter alternatives or remove them.
- Reduce JavaScript Execution Time: You must include code that you need on your site and remove anything unnecessary.
- Minimize Main Thread Work: If you have complicated layouts and themes, you can consider cutting down the complexity or using simpler alternatives.
- Use A Browser Cache: It will help you to load most elements of your page faster.
Lastly, you can fix CLS issues by checking the sizes of your videos, images, buttons, and other elements that take too much time to load. You will avoid the most unexpected layout changes when you allow the right amount of space for each piece of content.
Core Web Vitals will help us provide a better user experience to our website visitors and improve our rankings. Many of your competitors will fail to adjust to these new ranking factors. They are technical parts of a website, so you have the option to work on them and meet the new standards of Google.
