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Google is constantly updating its site ranking algorithm. Back in 2011, with Panda and through the much-talked-about Hummingbird, Fred, and Bert updates – 2021 brought a page experience update and the Core Web Vitals that many of us are still catching up with today.
If you maintain a website, there is nothing like the shiver that goes down your spine when you hear another massive update is approaching. Even if you know your SEO company only uses the latest white hat strategies and techniques to optimize your site, it can still make you cringe a little thinking about what the update may mean for the ranks you’ve worked hard to achieve.
In general, though, you can rest easy, no matter what the update entails, if your site includes high-quality, original content and follows SEO best practices it will maintain its authority.
With over a year since the Core Web Vitals update, now, the focus has become using the metrics to improve your site’s search results.
Three Elements of Google’s Core Vital Update
Google’s Core Vitals are three specific factors that it looks at to deem the overall user experience on a page as worthy. Google is evaluating three sub-factors that, quite honestly, have been around for a long time, as any SEO or web developer professional knows. These include:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): This metric is used to determine how quickly the webpage loads. For a site to offer users a stellar experience, the site needs to load quickly on any device. Longer than 2 seconds, and it’s likely you’ve already lost your potential customer to the “back” button.
- First Input Delay (FID): A user visits your site planning on engaging. The FID measures how interactive a webpage is. The FID on your website will need to be faster than 100 milliseconds to rank high.
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): The CLS measures the stability of a website. A user may become frustrated if the visible elements get lost such as if they lose a button they were trying to tap or lose a text field.
It’s not that these areas have been ignored in the past, but the pressure is on now to meet the quality metrics so that Google’s algorithm will rank a website higher in search results.
How the Core Vitals Update Affects Search Results
Chances are if you’ve been paying attention to these types of metrics, your site’s search rankings have responded positively. By focusing on the overall UX, you’ve already covered all your bases now that Google has started using them in ranking algorithms. There is always room for improvement though and if you can fine-tune and meet the important metrics and understand which matter, you’ll be able to position your website better in the search results. For example, your site may load quickly to the naked eye – but does it actually meet the 100-millisecond FID metric? Taking steps to improve speed by reducing HTML, optimizing images, and more – you may notice the speed increases needed to meet this Core Vital.
Measuring Your Site’s Core Web Vitals
Before you are tempted to dive in and start working to improve your site’s core vitals, may want to run some tests. Regularly assessing your site should be part of your website’s normal maintenance. If you’ve been focused on the UX of your site, you may not need to make any changes to see your site’s search results improve.
Here are a few ways to measure your site’s performance:
Page Speed Checkers
There are numerous online tools that can provide insight into your website’s performance. One suggestion is Google Page Speed Insights. It’s as simple as entering a URL and clicking on “Analyze.” It will provide a summary of various metrics and key data and give your site’s performance a grade. Make sure to test both the mobile and desktop versions of your site. You can use PageSpeed Insights on any website page. It will offer some suggestions for areas that can be improved. Generally, you’ll want to aim for these scores:
- LCP: 2.5 seconds
- FID: < 100 milliseconds
- CLS: < 0.1 seconds
Google Search Console
For developers and webmasters, the Chrome User Experience Report can provide a report on your site’s core vitals. The report is made available through GSC and gives you real data and insights from actual site visitors. This provides an understanding of how users use and interacts with your website. Login to your GSC dashboard then finds “Core Web Vitals” under the “Experience” tab.
Chrome Extensions
If you use Google Chrome, their Web Vitals extension can be a valuable tool for measuring your site’s core vitals. The Web Vitals extension provides key metrics on your site’s performance, including page size, requests, and page load time. It also provides recommendations for improving your site’s performance. It’s as simple as installing the extension, then opening a website you want to test. The extension automatically starts tracking the site’s performance, and it will generate a report of the results.
Get Help Improving Your Website’s Core Vital Metrics
It’s a lot easier today than ever with all the online tools and plugins available to understand what’s happening with your site’s performance and what needs attention. But we get it, it can be a lot to keep up with when you’re already running a business. Whether you need help analyzing your core vital reports or metrics or letting us handle the deep dive – we welcome you to talk to the expert team here at Keyword Performance. We’ll create a strategy to ensure your site is at the top of its game.
