Core Web Vitals: A Complete Review

Core Web Vitals is a collection of three key metrics used to evaluate the user experience on your website. 

These key metrics include Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID) and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). Core Web Vitals has now become an integral part of Google’s search algorithm, and can therefore have an impact on your website’s visibility in search results.

Understanding Core Web Vitals is important because it can have a direct impact on your website’s user experience. If your website has a slow loading time or unpredictable layout change, it can lead to a poor user experience and thus increase the risk of high bounce rate and lower conversion rates . 

In addition, optimizing Core Web Vitals can also have a positive impact on your website’s SEO and improve visibility in search results. In this post, we’ll dive into each of the three Core Web Vitals metrics and explain how you can measure and optimize them on your website.

What are Core Web Vitals?

Core Web Vitals is a group of three web vital metrics designed to assess the overall user experience of your website. These three metrics are Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). 

Let’s look at each of these metrics in more detail:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) measures the time from when a user requests a web page until the largest visible element is fully loaded on the screen. A fast LCP score means your page loads quickly, which can improve the user experience.
• First Input Delay (FID) measures the time between when a user interacts with an element on your page and when the browser responds to that action. If your page has a high FID, it can result in frustration and a poor user experience.
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) measures the overall visual stability of your page. It is based on how much the layout moves while the page loads. The more unstable your page is, the more frustrating it can be for the user to navigate.

Overall, poor results on the Core Web Vitals metrics can result in a poor user experience, which can lead to a high bounce rate and lower conversion rates. Therefore, it is important to focus on optimizing these metrics on your website to improve the user experience and increase engagement.

The three main components of Core Web Vitals

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) measures the time it takes for the largest visible element on your page to load and appear on screen. It can be a large image file or a video, and it depends on the design and content of your page. LCP results are divided into three categories: Good (under 2.5 seconds), Needs Improvement (2.5 to 4 seconds), and Poor (over 4 seconds). To improve LCP results, you can reduce the size of image or video files, optimize server response, and implement caching.

First Input Delay (FID)

• First Input Delay (FID) measures the time between when a user interacts with an element on your page and when the browser responds to that action. It can be a click on a button, a selection in a drop-down menu, or some other form of interaction. FID results are also divided into three categories: Good (under 100 milliseconds), Needs Improvement (100 to 300 milliseconds), and Poor (over 300 milliseconds). To improve FID results, you can reduce JavaScript blocking resources and use browser cache to retrieve resources faster.

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) measures the visual stability of your page. It takes into account how much elements on the page move while the page loads. If your visitors have to wait for elements to move or reload, it will make for a poor user experience. CLS scores are also divided into three categories: good (below 0.1), needs improvement (0.1 to 0.25) and poor (above 0.25). To improve CLS results, you can fix element dimensions, implement preloaders, and avoid adding elements that move or cause other elements to move.

By understanding each of these three main components of Core Web Vitals and implementing techniques to improve them, you can improve the user experience on your website and also increase your visibility in Google search results.

How Can You Measure Core Web Vitals?

To measure Core Web Vitals on your site, you can use a variety of tools. Some of the most common tools include Google Lighthouse, Google Search Console, and Google PageSpeed ​​Insights. 

These tools will generate reports detailing your Core Web Vitals results and also provide recommendations for improvement.

Once you’ve collected data on your Core Web Vitals results, it’s important to analyze and understand that data to identify the areas that need improvement. It’s also important to monitor your results regularly to ensure your site remains compliant with the latest standards.

Google PageSpeed ​​Insights (Riised.dk example)

By measuring and analyzing your Core Web Vitals results and implementing improvements accordingly, you can improve the user experience on your site and also increase your visibility in search engine results.

Optimizing Core Web Vitals

Now that you understand what Core Web Vitals are and how you can measure them, it’s time to focus on optimizing your results. Here are some technical optimization tips to improve LCP, FID and CLS:

LCP optimization tips:

• Optimize images and videos on your page to reduce file size.
• Reduce server response time to speed up content loading.
• Implement caching to reduce the time it takes to load your page.

FID optimization tips:

• Minimize the use of JavaScript blocking resources.
• Use browser cache to retrieve resources faster..
• Optimizing and simplifying the code on your page.

CLS-optimeringstips:

• Fix dimensions of elements on your page to prevent them from moving while the page loads.
• Implement preloaders to show users that the page is loading.
• Avoid adding elements that move or cause other elements to move.

How does optimizing Core Web Vitals affect SEO?

Optimizing Core Web Vitals is important for your site’s SEO. Google has announced that Core Web Vitals will be an important ranking factor in their algorithm from May 2021. This means that pages with good Core Web Vitals scores have a better chance of ranking higher in search results than pages with poor results.

It is important to remember that Core Web Vitals is not the only factor that affects your site’s SEO, but it is an important factor that can affect your visibility and ranking in search results. 

By optimizing your Core Web Vitals results, you can improve your user experience and increase your visibility in search engine results.

Conclusion

In this article, we have reviewed the Core Web Vitals and their importance to the user experience and SEO. We’ve learned that Core Web Vitals are three key metrics of speed, interactivity and stability that are important to giving your users the best possible experience on your website.

We’ve also seen how you can measure your Core Web Vitals results and implement technical optimization tips to improve them. It’s important to remember that improving your Core Web Vitals scores can not only provide better user experience, but also increase your visibility in search engine results.

Call to action and implementation of optimization tips

If you haven’t already focused on improving your Core Web Vitals results, you should take action now. Use the tools and optimization tips we’ve reviewed in this article to evaluate and improve your website’s performance.

Once you’ve improved your Core Web Vitals scores, you can regularly monitor them to ensure your site remains compliant with the latest standards.

By taking responsibility for your Core Web Vitals results and implementing the optimization tips, you can improve your user experience, increase your visibility in search results, and give your users the best experience on your website.