Google’s Core Web Vitals

Do your visitors have an optimal experience on your website pages?

While we spend a lot of time focusing on keyword optimization, mobile-experience, and backlinks, Google pays a lot of attention to the on-page experience. Core Web Vitals are a set of signals that assess a website’s user experience by measuring loading performance, responsiveness to interactions, and visual stability. 

Core Web Vitals have undergone some changes since they were launched in 2020, but they’re still one of the most important Google ranking factors.

In this guide, I’ll explain what Core Web Vitals are today and help you figure out how they could impact your rankings.

Key Takeaways

• Google uses Core Web Vitals to rank websites for SEO visibility, so it’s important to know your scores and how to optimize them.
• There are three parts of Core Web Vitals: LCP, INP, and CLS, which measure loading performance, interactivity, and visual stability, respectively.
• You can see your site’s Core Web Vital scores in Google Search Console or by using tools like PageSpeed Insights. 
• You can use Core Web Vitals to identify problems with your site performance and improve the user experience.
• Improving LCP might involve optimizing images or finding a faster web host.
• INP improvements include keeping request counts low and transfer sizes small.
• CLS scores can be fixed by using consistent fonts and setting size attributes for media.

Table of Contents

• Key Takeaways
• What Are Core Web Vitals?
  • 1. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
  • 2. Interaction To Next Paint (INP)
  • 3. Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
• Why Are Core Web Vitals Important?
• How to See Your Website’s Core Web Vitals
• How to Improve Core Web Vitals
• FAQs
• Conclusion

What Are Core Web Vitals?

Google Core Web Vitals are a set of metrics that determine the quality of the performance visitors experience when they land on your page.

There are three different metrics:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), which measures loading performance, or how long it takes the page to completely render.
• Interaction to Next Paint (INP), which measures the site’s responsiveness when a user interacts with it by clicking a button or filling out a field. 
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), which measures visual stability, i.e., if the layout shifts while a user is on the page. 

Optimizing your website for these can potentially have a big impact on your SEO rankings and your business.

1. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

Have you ever gone to a site and it takes forever to load all the images, buttons, sidebars, and so on? Having to wait for a page to load is a prime example of a less-than-ideal user experience. 

For example, it’s common practice to keep the most important information and eye-catching content above the fold, right?

Well, that’s no use to anyone if it takes all the interesting “above the fold” content six seconds to load.

Google is paying attention to this because they realize it’s causing a lot of people to bounce.

The general benchmark for that largest element to load is 2.5 seconds. 

Improving LCP is crucial for optimizing Core Web Vitals, as it directly impacts how quickly a page’s main content is visible to users.

2. Interaction To Next Paint (INP)

Previously, Core Web Vitals measured the duration from the first interaction a user makes with a web page to the moment the page responds, known as First Input Delay.

That has changed to Interaction to Next Paint (INP).

What’s the difference between the two? INP is more comprehensive in that it measures all activity after the initial page load. So this could include clicking a link, clicking a button, or hitting “play” on a video.

For the best user experience, Google is looking for an INP of less than 200 milliseconds. Note that the final INP value is calculated based on whichever interaction takes the longest to respond. This means even if every other interaction meets the minimum standard, just one slow interaction on a page will bring down the INP.

Some of your pages may have little to no elements for interaction, such as pages with mostly images or text. Others, with fields to fill out or buttons to click, may have a lot. You should make sure you optimize for INP regardless of the level of interaction on a page.  

3. Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

As mentioned previously, Cumulative Layout Shift refers to the frequency of unexpected layout changes and a web page’s overall visual stability. 

This one is straightforward, and I have a perfect example.

Have you ever scrolled through a website, saw an interesting link, went to click on it, but right at the last second, the page shifted so that your cursor was no longer over the link?

Now you have to go back and (hopefully) find that link again.

These are signs of a poor on-page experience, and Google is factoring these issues as they strive to provide the best experience for users.

Going forward, the focus is on mimicking an “in-person” experience online. As more and more stores shut down and e-commerce continues to boom, it’s up to store/site owners to provide that in-store experience to their users.

For optimal Core Web Vitals SEO and a good user experience, the goal is to have a score of less than 0.1. With this scoring system. 0 is the best-case scenario, where there is no shifting at all, and the numbers grow as there is more shifting.  The less intrusive and frustrating page changes, the better.

Why Are Core Web Vitals Important?

Core Web Vitals scores are critical because they directly impact user experience and, consequently, search engine rankings. Google considers these factors when ranking websites, so they’re key for your site’s SEO. Plus, better UX can encourage users to stay on your page, interact with it, and return to it.

Other signals that Google uses to assess page experience include:

• If the page is optimized for mobile browsing.
• It doesn’t contain any misleading content or malicious software.
• You’re using HTTPS.

“Focusing on user experience is a great way to naturally integrate CWV into your optimization workflow,” says Cal Gruening, Technical SEO Strategist at NP Digital. “Being mindful of the media size and type you use, the amount of tracking and third-party analytics being fired, and how quickly your site becomes interactive to the user are just a few core areas that serve SEO and user performance in tandem.”

How to See Your Website’s Core Web Vitals

To get to your Core Web Vitals data, you need to access Google Search Console. If you haven’t already accessed GSC, you’ll see a screen like this asking you to verify that you are the owner or administrator of the site.

I recommend selecting the URL prefix, as it gives you more options for verification.

Note that if you already have Google Analytics, it can automatically verify your site for you.

Once you’ve verified your site, go to the “Experience” section of your account to get an overview of your Core Web Vitals data.

Never used Google Search Console before? Check out my tips on using it to improve your SEO.

I also like the PageSpeed Insights tool, which is fast and super easy to use. 

How to Improve Core Web Vitals

Once you have your Google Core Web Vitals data, it’ll show you if your scores passed or failed as well as the specific score for each metric.  

If you didn’t pass one or all of them, it’s time to make some changes.

Some of my tips for improving LCP include:

• Cut down the content displayed at the top of a page. If it’s not critical information that the user is seeking, move it lower.
• Optimize images by compressing them and using up-to-date formats, or remove unnecessary large images completely.
• Use lazy loading, which loads images and videos only when they appear on the screen.
• Use a faster web host.

For INP, try these steps:

• Reduce third-party code impact. If you have a bunch of different processes happening simultaneously, it will take longer for the action to start working.
• Reduce JavaScript execution time. Only send the code your users need and remove anything unnecessary.
• Minimize main thread work. The main thread does most of the work, so you need to cut the complexity of your style and layouts if you have this issue.
• Keep request counts low, and transfer sizes small. Make sure you’re not trying to transfer huge files.

Here are some ideas for improving your CLS:

• Set size attributes (width and height) for media like images and videos.
• Reserve space for dynamic content like ads to prevent unexpected shifts.
• Use consistent fonts to avoid layout shifts from late font loading.

FAQs

Conclusion

Core Web Vitals and SEO go hand-in-hand, and we all know that we can’t ignore any single ranking factor if we want to beat out our competition and keep our rankings.
Paying attention to your Core Web Vitals score is essential for many businesses, including e-commerce. But no matter what business you’re in, addressing your CWV scores can result in a better user experience and improved SEO results.

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