What Are The Core Web Vitals Of SEO?
A lot of different factors influence how Google determines the rank of a website. One of these is page experience, which essentially evaluates the users’ experience on the page.
The existing search signals for page experience include mobile-friendliness, safe-browsing, HTTPS-security, and intrusive interstitial guidelines. These factors are called the Core Web Vitals of SEO. They each represent a unique, measurable aspect of the user experience of the page, judging how user-friendly it is. Furthermore, since the Core Web Vitals of SEO measure user experience, they are likely to change as user expectations evolve.
Breaking Down The 3 Core Web Vitals Of SEO
Image Source: Google Developers
Google has derived three new signals from the Core Web Vitals of SEO for its May 2021 update. Largest Contentful Paint, First Input Delay, and Cumulative Layout Shift each measure loading speed, time to interactivity, and visual stability respectively.
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
A “good” LCP score is achieved if the LCP occurs within the first 2.5 seconds of the page starting to load.
LCP measures the time taken by a page’s main content to load. Since the Core Web Vitals of SEO are all user-focused, LCP measures how long it takes for the page to become readable from the user’s perspective. More technically, the LCP metric reports how long it takes for the largest image or text block visible within the viewport to become available to the user. If the LCP occurs between 2.5 and 4 seconds, it “needs improvement”, and if it takes longer than 4 seconds, it is designated as “poor”.
Image Source: web.dev
- First Input Delay (FID)
A “good” FID is less than 100 milliseconds.
FID measures the time taken by the page to become interactive and responsive to users. For example, it measures how long it would take for a user to perform an action like choosing an option from a menu or clicking a link. More technically, FID measures the time difference between when a user first performs an action on a page and when the browser begins processing event handlers to respond to that action. The FID “needs improvement” if it is between 100 and 300 milliseconds, and is considered “poor” if it is greater than 300 milliseconds.
Image Source: wed.dev
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
A “good” CLS score is less than 0.1.
CLS measures the volume of unexpected layout shifts in the visual page content. This metric essentially measures how smooth the user experience is. If elements on your page remain fairly stable as the page loads and do not shuffle around a lot, your page is probably in a good place in terms of CLS. An expert explains, “CLS measures the total of all individual layout shift scores for every unexpected layout shift that occurs during the entire lifespan of the page. A layout shift occurs any time a visible element changes its position from one rendered frame to the next.” A CLS between 0.1 and 0.25 “needs improvement”, and a score above 0.25 is considered “poor”.
Image Source: web.dev
How Will The Core Web Vitals of SEO Affect Your Ecommerce Store’s Google Ranking in 2021?
Google will roll out an update in May 2021 that will make the users’ experience one of the ranking factors for any website. As per this Google update, user-friendly sites will rank higher than sites that aren’t user-friendly. This is in line with Google’s ambition to rank the sites that users love the most.
Since the Core Web Vitals of SEO measures a user’s experience on your eCommerce store’s pages, it will be imperative for you to improve them. By improving your scores for each of these parameters, you can help users have a better experience on your site, encouraging them to return to it and use it more frequently. Ignoring the Core Web Vitals would be one of the major Ecommerce SEO mistakes!
Although the page experience metric is only one of many used to determine Google ranking, it’s certainly worth investing in if you want to improve the Google ranking of your site’s pages. Get in touch with us today if you want to improve the Google ranking of your eCommerce store in 2021!
Where Can I Find My Site’s Core Web Vitals of SEO Data?
You can find your site’s Core Web Vitals of SEO data in the “enhancements” section of your Google Search Console account.
How Can I Improve My Site’s Core Web Vitals of SEO Score?
Once the Google updates roll out in May 2021, improving your site’s Core Web Vitals of SEO score will be essential to improve its Google ranking. In anticipation of the update, developers can undertake several actions to improve each parameter’s score.
To improve your site’s LCP, you can:
- Remove any unnecessarily third-party script
- Upgrade your web host
- Set up lazy loading
- Remove large page elements
- Minimize your CSS
- Run Google Pagespeed Tool Report of your store and refer to Core Web Vitals section.
For a page that’s composed of just content (like a blog post or news articles), FID isn’t very important, since the only “interactions” involve scrolling down the page or zooming in and out. However, for a page that is populated with actions that involve users needing to quickly click on and/or input something (like a login page), FID is extremely important.
To improve your site’s FID, you can:
- Minimize (or defer) JavaScript
- Remove any non-critical third-party scripts
- Use a browser cache
Finally, you can lower your site’s CLS score (reminder: a lower CLS score is better!) by:
- Using set size attribute dimensions for any media
- Ensuring ad elements have a reserved space
- Adding new UI elements below the fold
Note: Consult with your Tech team before implementing above recommendations on Store.
Although effective, these methods are certainly very technical. These SEO jargon and concepts are often challenging to understand for non-professionals in most circumstances, so if you would like some expert advice, or want to outsource SEO of your eCommerce store with respect to the Core Web Vitals, get in touch with Orvador today by getting Free SEO Audit of your website.
