Weekly marketing wisdom you can read in 5 minutes, for free. Add remarkable ideas and insights to your inbox, once a week, by subscribing to our newsletter.
A Guide To Improving Core Web Vitals
What are Core Web Vitals?
There’s no denying that improving your website’s core web vitals is important. Google has stated that these metrics are “a set of real-world, user-centered metrics that quantify key aspects of the user experience. They measure dimensions of web usability such as load time, interactivity, and the stability of content as it loads.” In other words, they’re a great way to gauge how users are actually experiencing your site.
And Google has also said that they plan to use these metrics as ranking signals in future algorithm updates. So if you want your site to perform well in search results, you need to make sure your core web vitals are up to par.
Fortunately, there are a few things you can do to improve your core web vitals. In this article, we’ll go over some of the best methods for improving each metric.
Table of contents:
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
LCP measures how long it takes for the largest item on your page to load. This could be an image, a video, or even just a block of text. To improve your LCP score, you need to make sure that your largest items are loading quickly.
There are a few ways to do this. One is to optimise your images. This means using the correct file format, compressing your images, and using srcset and sizes attributes. You can also lazy load your images, which means loading them only when they’re needed.
Another way to improve your LCP score is to make sure you’re not loading too much JavaScript. If your scripts are render-blocking, it can delay the loading of your content. So try to load as little JavaScript as possible, or use async or defer attributes.
Finally, you can also improve your LCP score by using a content delivery network (CDN). A CDN can help reduce server response times and deliver content faster.
First Input Delay (FID)
FID measures how long it takes for users to be able to interact with your page. This could be anything from clicking a button to filling out a form.
To improve your FID score, you need to make sure that any JavaScript your page uses is not delay-inducing. This means checking for things like expensive network calls and long computations.
You can also improve your FID score by using a web worker. A web worker is a script that runs in the background, independent of the main page. This means it doesn’t have to wait for the main page to finish loading before it starts working.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
CLS measures how much unexpected layout shift occurs while your page is loading. This could be caused by things like images or videos resizing themselves, ads appearing out of nowhere, or text moving around as new elements load.
To improve your CLS score, you need to make sure that all the elements on your page are sized correctly. This means using width and height attributes, as well as object-fit for images. You should also avoid using insertAdjacentHTML, and make sure any iframes have the sandbox attribute.
You can also reduce CLS by making sure all your fonts are loaded before they’re used. You can do this by using font-display: optional in your CSS. This will tell the browser to only use the font if it’s already been loaded.
Improving your core web vitals is important if you want your site to perform well in Google search results. By following the tips in this article, you can help improve your LCP, FID, and CLS scores.
How do I go about improving Core Web Vitals?
There are a number of ways to improve your site’s core web vitals. Here are some tips:
- Use a content delivery network (CDN). A CDN can help deliver your content faster and reduce latency.
- Optimise your images. Make sure your images are compressed and properly sized.
- Minimise HTTP requests. Reduce the number of HTTP requests your page makes by combining files or using caching techniques.
- Enable Keep-Alive. Keep-Alive allows multiple requests to be sent over a single connection, which can reduce latency.
- Use browser caching. Browser caching can help reduce the number of HTTP requests made to your server.
- Serve resources from a consistent URL. Serving resources from a consistent URL can help reduce the number of DNS lookups.
By following these tips, you can improve your site’s core web vitals and provide a better experience for your users.
What are the advantages?
Improving your website’s core web vitals has a plethora of advantages that can help you boost your business in many ways.
Firstly, improving UX metrics such as LCP, FID, and CLS will improve your website’s user experience.
Secondly, pages will load faster and be more responsive. This is crucial for both search engine rankings and conversion rates.
Thirdly, by improving your website’s sustainability, you’ll make it more resilient to changes in the future.
All of these factors together can have a huge impact on your business’s bottom line. So if you’re looking to improve your website’s performance, start with improving its core web vitals!
How does it impact SEO?
Google has announced that improving your site’s Core Web Vitals will be a ranking factor in its search algorithm. This means that having a good score on these measures could give you a SEO boost.
Improving these metrics can have a significant impact on your website’s SEO. In addition to improving your ranking in Google search, you’ll also see an improvement in click-through rate and conversion rate.
There’s no question that improving your website’s core web vitals is important for SEO.