Imagine you're a search engine, trying to find the best web pages for your users. You want to show them the most relevant content possible, and the fastest loading sites will get ranked higher. This is what Google's Core Web Vitals are all about—they are important metrics that determine how quickly a page loads and how easy it is for users to interact with it.
What are Core Web Vitals?
Core web vitals are the metrics that Google uses to determine how fast a page loads. The three core web vitals are:
• FID — First Input Delay
• LCP — Largest Contentful Paint
• CLS — Cumulative Layout Shift
When everything else is the same, Google will prioritize sites that meet their Core Web Vitals.
When everything else is the same, Google will prioritize sites that meet their Core Web Vitals. This means that if a site has all the Core Web Vitals and one of its competitors doesn’t, Google will rank the former higher in their search results than the latter.
That being said, there are some instances where this isn’t always true:
• If your site has plenty of other signals (like backlinks) that indicate it has quality content and authority on a topic, it may still be ranked well even if it doesn't have all of these components.
• Sometimes Google might choose to partially ignore this data. For example, if they think users would benefit more from seeing another resource instead of yours (for instance), they might not consider whether your website meets Core Web Vitals as important anymore.
The process of improving core vitals metrics is a never-ending one, as it's closely related to the speed of a page.
It's easy to think that just because a page is fast, it's already optimized and there isn't much more you can do to improve its speed. In reality, there are an infinite number of ways in which you can fine-tune core vitals metrics—and very often, the process of improving these metrics is like a game of whack-a-mole: fix one thing and another pops up.
Because this process is never-ending, it's important to keep testing your pages regularly so you're constantly improving them. This will also help ensure that your site stays as fast as possible!
First input delay (FID) measures how quickly a browser responds when a user first interacts with your page.
First input delay (FID) measures how quickly a browser responds when a user first interacts with your page. FID is measured in milliseconds (ms). A good FID should be below 100ms, but ideally it should be below 50ms or even lower. You can measure your FID using Page Speed Insights or GTmetrix—they’re free and easy to use!
To improve this metric, you need to reduce the amount of time it takes for the browser to load all resources for each page on your website. This includes images and scripts that are not essential to displaying content as well as third-party services like maps or ads that are displayed on some pages but not others (but still require loading time).
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) measures loading performance.
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) measures loading performance. The LCP is the first element on a page that's visible to the user. It's also known as First Contentful Paint, and it means that the browser has finished rendering content that's meaningful to your customer and shows them something useful before they click around your site.
What does this look like? It could be anything from an image, headline, or CTA button in your nav bar—anything that makes sense for you and your product.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) measures visual stability.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) is a metric that measures visual stability. It’s a simple calculation: the time between when the browser receives the first byte of a page and when its layout is complete. If the layout isn’t completed by then, it means that users are seeing unstyled content or even broken pages. While this might not sound like an issue on its own, it can lead to higher bounce rates and abandonment rates because people won’t stick around long enough for your site to load completely and present itself as functional.
Other things that can affect Core Web Vitals metrics
There are many factors that can influence your Core Web Vitals metrics. For example, the user's connection speed, browser and device have an impact on load time. Also, SSL certificate validity and mobile friendliness will affect your scores for those respective tests.
By meeting Google's Core Web Vitals standards, you can get ranked better on search engines
Google is constantly updating its search engine to give users the best experience possible, so it's important that your website meets their standards. If you want to improve your rankings in Google search results, then make sure you're meeting all their Core Web Vitals. Here at COH Digital, we can optimise your core web vitals to increase your rankings and user experience. Contact us today for any assistance.
