Core Web Vitals refers to some factors of a webpage that are very important for a user experience. Google will start considering these factors as a ranking signal of a website very soon.
Today in this blog we will discuss about the Core Web Vital factors and how to improve them to make a good responsive website that provides good user experience.
There are three factors in core web vitals:
#1. Large Contentful Paint (LCP)
It indicates the amount of time the webpage needs to download fully and ready to interact with the user. Actually, the largest image or block is measured in LCP counting. Other background elements are not counted in LCP. Also, video elements are still not counted in LCP measurements.
#2. First Input Delay (FID)
This is the second metrics in core web vitals. After the first contentful paint the time that the user needs to interact with the page is defines as first input delay.
Interaction like clicking a menu, entering an email ID. This metric is not so important for content-based pages like blog posts. But it is very important for good user experience if your webpage need interaction to user like collecting their email ID, or signing up them.
#3. Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
It measures the stability of the contents of a webpage. You probably noticed sometimes the content of a page moves until the page loads completely. As a result, if users click on a link or something it ends up opening a wrong page or the click not works at all. It is not good for user experiences.
Where to check Core Web Vitals for your website?
Open search console report. In the left sidebar you will find the core web vitals section. From the report you can find the number of poor URLs, URLs that needs improvement and good URls. For more details open the report. In the details report you can explore the URls to fix the issue and which factor is causing the poor user experience.
Also, you can use Google’s insight speed test tool to get all these metrics result.
What should be the ideal value of these metrics?
LCP: For a good user experience LCP should be less than 2.5 Sec. LCP more than 4 Sec is considered as poor.
FID: FID should be 100 MS or less for a good user experience. If the result is 100 MS to 300 MS, then it needs improvement.
CLS: A CLS value less than 0.1 provides good user experience. More than 0.25 provides poor user experience.
How to improve your pages LCP?
Allow Lazy Load of Images
Lazy load only loads the images when users crawl down the page. So, it helps LCP to display faster by allocating more speed to the main blocks or images of the page.
Remove third-party scripts and large element
Third-party scrips always slow down page speed. Try to remove it if possible. Also, you can find out large elements that are slowing your pages down from the Google Insight tool and remove them.
Minify CSS
Minifying CSS refers to removing the unnecessary CSS codes. Bulky CSS significantly slowed down a website.
Upgrade Hosting
Unless your web server provides you, a good speed nothing is going to help you for a good LCP. From the Google insight tool analysis if you found that your “initial server response time” is not good then upgrading to a good server can be the best solution.
How to improve First Input Delay?
Minimizing or deferring JS
This is the main solution to decrease the time to first input delay. Until the java script is loading completely; it is not possible for a user to interact with the page. By minimizing or deferring the Java Script you can improve your first input delay.
Remove Third-Party Scripts
Like the LCP; FID also increases if your page uses many third-party scripts. If possible, remove them for a better FID score.
Using Browser Cache
Using browser cache can help your website load faster. Also, it helps JS to load quickly.
How to improve Cumulative Layout Shift?
Use of fixed dimension
Recent days designers don’t like to allocate fixed dimension for images, videos and other graphics. Instead, they crawl CSS to display the graphics. This is not a good practice. When the dimension is not declared the content moves until the graphics are fully downloaded.
Don’t allow pop up content or ads inside content
This is another reason content loss the stability. So, try to not allow pop-up contents inside content.
Why it is the right time to take care of Core Web Vitals?
Google already declared they will consider this metrics as a ranking factor soon. But the good news is that you will get six months’ time to repair the damage. As Google will allow minimum six months after the introduction of this tool in console.
So, check the core web vitals report of your website in the search console as soon as possible. You will find two sections for mobile and desktop. Take care the mobile report carefully. As Google looks for the mobile version of a website for first indexing and ranking purpose.
If you found poor core web vitals results for your URLs then try to fix them or you can seek assistance from a mobile SEO agency like Shout Digital.
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