Core Web Vitals: what is it and how to improve it

Discover what Core Web Vitals are, why they matter for your website's performance and SEO, and actionable steps you can take to improve them.

Key takeaways:

·      Core Web Vitals are essential Google ranking factors that focus on user experience, loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability.

·      Improving Core Web Vitals can lead to better SEO rankings, faster page load times, and higher user engagement.

·      Simple steps such as optimizing images, reducing JavaScript, and enhancing server response times can have a significant impact on these metrics.

Contents:

1. What is Core Web Vitals?

2. How Core Web Vitals impact SEO and UX

3. How Core Web Vitals works?

4. How to improve Core Web Vitals?

Google’s Core Web Vitals are essential metrics that evaluate your website’s speed, responsiveness, and visual stability—factors that directly impact its ranking and visibility. A strong performance in these areas can enhance your brand’s visibility and boost search engine rankings, while a poor score may push your site further down in results, making it harder for users to find you. In this article, we’ll explore how Core Web Vitals work and why optimizing them is crucial for your brand’s online success.

What are Core Web Vitals?

Core Web Vitals are a set of performance metrics introduced by Google to assess the quality of a webpage's user experience. These metrics focus on three key aspects: loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability. They form part of Google's broader "page experience" ranking signals, which evaluate the overall user experience (UX) of a site.

Why do Core Web Vitals matter?

About 53% of visits are likely to be abandon a page if it takes more than three seconds to load  - no wonder Google goes to such lengths to ensure the websites at the top of search results load quickly.

By analyzing Core Web Vitals, website owners and developers can measure how users perceive a page's performance, directly impacting engagement, conversion rates, and overall satisfaction.

Since these metrics are also part of Google's ranking algorithm, improving them can boost your site's visibility in search engine results. You can monitor these metrics through tools like Google Search Console, or use tools like PageSpeed Insights for more detailed insights.

Core Web Vitals: how they work

 There are three key metrics to assess the Core Web Vitals of a website: Largest Contentful Paint, First Input Delay, and Cumulative Layout Shift. Together, they tell you if your site meets the technical standards and delivers a smooth, engaging experience for visitors.

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

 Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) tracks how long it takes for the largest content element on your page (often an image or a large block of text) to fully load. The LCP represents loading performance from the user's perspective—if the page takes too long to render the most significant visual elements, users may leave the site prematurely. A LCP bellow 2.5 seconds is considered good, while LCP above 4 seconds are deemed poor.

First Input Delay (FID)

First Input Delay (FID) measures the time it takes for a website to respond to a user's first interaction, such as clicking a button or tapping a link. Specifically, it tracks the delay between when a user first interacts with a web page and when the browser responds to that interaction. High FID values indicate that the browser is busy with tasks like loading resources or running heavy JavaScript, which prevents it from responding promptly. Ideally, FID should be under 100 ms.

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

 Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) measures a page's visual stability by tracking unexpected layout shifts as the page loads. When elements like images, fonts, or ads load asynchronously, they can cause other elements to shift, leading to a poor user experience—especially if users are in the middle of interacting with the content. Unexpected movements of buttons, images, or text can be frustrating and disruptive, making it fundamental to maintain a stable layout throughout the loading process.

How Core Web Vitals impact SEO and UX

Improving Core Web Vitals enhances your site's performance and contributes to a better overall user experience, which can drive higher engagement and reduce bounce rates.  

Since Core Web Vitals are integrated into Google's search ranking algorithm, optimizing these metrics directly influences your site's position in search results. As a result, faster, more stable, and more responsive websites tend to rank higher, attracting more traffic and conversions.

By focusing on these real-world performance metrics, you ensure that your website not only meets Google’s technical standards but also provides a positive experience for users.

How to improve Core Web Vitals?

These are the steps you should take to improve Core Web Vitals:

1. Audit your website

 Using the right tools is key for tracking and improving Core Web Vitals. Tools such as Google PageSpeed Insights, Lighthouse, and Chrome DevTools provide detailed information on where your site needs optimization.

2. Optimize Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

Improving LCP involves optimizing how quickly the largest element (image, headline) loads. Here are some key strategies:

• Optimize images: compress images, use modern formats like WebP, and replace GIFs with videos.

• Lazy load non-critical images: load images only when they come into view, except for above-the-fold content.

• Use a CDN: speed up resource delivery by using a Content Delivery Network, especially if your users are globally distributed.

• Upgrade your server: slow server response times impact LCP. Ensure you have sufficient server capacity or upgrade to a higher hosting plan.

3. Enhance First Input Delay (FID)

To improve FID, which measures the page’s responsiveness to user interactions, you can:

• Reduce JavaScript: minimize or defer non-essential JavaScript until after the page has loaded.

• Break up long tasks: split long-running JavaScript tasks to ensure the browser can handle user inputs faster.

• Use web workers: offload complex scripts to background threads, freeing up the main thread to improve responsiveness.

4. Improving Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

 To enhance CLS, which quantifies the stability of your webpage, focus on:

• Save space for media: specify size attributes for images and videos to avoid unexpected content shifts.

• Optimize fonts: preload fonts to prevent layout shifts caused by delayed font rendering.

• Use stable animations: ensure animations do not affect other elements on the page to maintain layout stability.

5. Continuously monitor and update

 Optimizing Core Web Vitals is an ongoing process. Every time you update your website, run new audits to ensure that changes do not negatively affect your performance metrics.

How we can help improve your Core Web Vitals

Improving your Core Web Vitals can seem complex, but that’s where we come in. Our team offers comprehensive site audits to identify performance bottlenecks and create tailored optimization strategies. From enhancing page speed to improving responsiveness and visual stability, we ensure your site meets Google’s criteria. With our expertise, your brand can achieve higher rankings, better user experience, and increased visibility. Let us help you optimize your Core Web Vitals and keep your website ahead of the competition.