Google’s Core Web Vitals are Changing into Ranking Signals in May 2021

Are you ready?

If you have been ignoring Google’s Core web vitals Google, please brace yourself because Google has officially announced that Google’s Core Web Vitals are going to be the conditions for their ranking factors from the coming month of May.

This means Google is going to consider the Core Web Vital score of your webpage together with additional ranking factors before driving your website to the top of the page.

So, guys, it’s time to handle Core Web Vitals with caution to avoid any drops in your page ranking.

Well, many of you must be unaware of this. Also, you will be wondering what these Core Web Vitals are and how they can impact the ranking of a website.

Don’t worry. I will cover all such information in this blog so that you have a better idea and knowledge of Core Web Vitals.

Let us first understand the meaning of Core Web Vitals.

What are Google’s Core Web Vitals?

“Core Web Vitals are a collection of three-page metrics whose main purpose is to examine the page loading speed, responsiveness, and visual balance of a web page visited by the user”

The Core Web Vitals are basically a part of those factors that are considered by Google to come up with the overall page experience score of a web page.

The Three Core Web Vitals Metrics

Core Web Vitals mainly include the given three metrics

1. Largest Contentful Paint(LCP)
   LCP weighs the loading performance of a web page and calculates the time in which the main content gets loaded on a web page.
   To be more clear, LCP is nothing but the period between making a click and getting the page content displayed on the screen.
   Google breaks LCP into three main categories namely good, need improvement, and poor as shown in the below picture
   To achieve an outstanding user-experience, the LCP value should not go beyond 2.5 seconds calculated right from the beginning of the page loading process
   
   Tips to improve the LCP of your site
   
   1. Avoid using large page elements.
   2. Choose a good hosting provider to host your site.
   3. Avoid using unnecessary third-party scripts on your webpage.
   4. Implement lazy loading on your website or webpage.
   5. Minimize your CSS.
2. First Input Delay(FID)
   FID determines responsiveness and identifies the experience i.e. what a user will feel when he will interact with the page for the first time.
   It measures the time taken for a user to connect with your page. The examples include
   1. Selecting a menu option.
   2. Expanding accordions.
   3. Performing navigations.
   4. Entering values to the text fields and so on…
   
   The below picture shows Google’s guidelines for FID.
   
   As the picture shows, the value should not go beyond 100 milliseconds to guarantee a delightful user experience.
   
   
   Tips to improve the FID of your site
   1. Minimize the use of Javascript
   2. Depreciate or avoid the use of third party scripts
   3. Utilize browser cache
3. Cumulative Layout Shift(CLS)
   CLS calculates visual stability i.e. how stable is a web page when it gets loaded.
   For example, If a page element moves around the page at the time of loading, this is a sign of poor CLS which should not occur.
   The below picture shows Google’s guidelines to categorize CLS values.
   
   As the picture says, the CLS value should lie within 0.1 to promise a great user experience.
   
   The factors that may elevate the value of CLS include the following
   1. The images or videos of unpredicted size.
   2. External ads that are likely to change their size frequently.
   
   Tips to improve the CLS of your site
   1. Define the size for media elements including videos, images, GIFs, etc.
   2. Reserve the space in advance for the ads.

Different Ways to Check Core Web Vitals of Your Webpage

1. Analyzing your Core Web Vitals with the help of Google LightHouse
   • Steps include:
     1. Launch your website in the browser.
     2. Choose the Developer option.
     3. Select the LightHouse tab from the given options.
     4. Toggle to select between mobile and desktop options.
     5. Click on Generate Reports.
        
2. Analyzing your Core Web Vitals with the help of Google Light House
   • Steps include:
     1. Launch PageSpeed Insight tool.
     2. Enter the desired URL.
     3. Toggle between mobile and desktop as per the need.
     4. Review the field or Stimulated data.
        
3. Analyse your Core Web Vitals using Google Search Console
   • Steps include:
     1. Log in and launch the Google Search Console dashboard
     2. Select Core Web Vitals from the enhancement tab.
     3. You can review the scores for both desktop and mobile devices as per your need.
     4. Check reports to gather details about the issues.
        

A Glance at Page Experience Signals

Page experience signals is a collection of signals determining the overall experience whenever a user interacts with a web page. 

• Mobile Friendliness
• Safe Browsing
• HTTPS
• Intrusive interstitial guidelines

How to Optimize Your Page Experience

1. Analyze and optimize your Core Web Vitals using any of the tools mentioned above.
2. Check the mobile-friendliness of your webpage or pages with the help of the Mobile-Friendly Test tool.
3. Ensure better security of your webpage/pages with the help of the Security Issues report.
4. Ensure a safe site connection by securing your site with HTTPS.
5. Utilize interstitials in an optimized way.
   

Augmenting the Core Web Vitals

Google advises taking anything marked as ‘poor’ as the top priority and fixing the issue on an immediate basis.

Then you are free to fix the other relevant issues based on their urgency of fixing.

If you are an individual with very little or absolutely zero technical knowledge, it is advised to take assistance from the technical team to solve the issues.

Meanwhile, you can follow a few practices including using AMPs (Accelerated Mobile Pages), limiting your number of page resources up to 50, restricting the size of your web pages under 500 kb to achieve better results.

EndNote

As the number of websites present on the world wide web is mounting every day, acquiring a good website ranking on the SERPs has become a more tough assignment.

A single mistake committed by you can have a huge impact on the ranking of your website.

Hence, folks, understand the Core Web Vitals thoroughly and follow all the required practices to optimize them.
Contact our team of professionals if you need help!!