Core Web Vitals: Facts and Importance

Core Web Vitals sign made with tile letters

Core Web Vitals are part of what Google uses to evaluate user experience on a webpage. Unsurprisingly, Google is currently the largest search engine on the market, holding its own with about 85% of search engine traffic. With a number like that, it’s clear that companies should want their webpage to be at the top of Google’s results list. Keep in mind, most people don’t even click to the second page of results when searching a topic on Google. By analyzing Core Web Vitals, you can assess the visual strength, responsiveness, and speed of your website—all necessary items for SEO. For your page to be effective, the three Core Web Vitals need to be top priority. What exactly are the three vitals, and do you really need to care about them? We say absolutely yes, and here is why:

1. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

LCP refers to whatever content on your page that is the largest size. This means it probably takes the longest time to load. You want your page to stay around two seconds or less for load time or visitors will get frustrated and move on. Fast visuals are key. Your LCP can be an image or page banner, a summary article, or the main content of the page. Improving the LCP of your page can be done by choosing a quality web host and opting for something called “lazy loading,” which means your large content items (like images) will load as visitors scroll down the page rather than having everything loaded and ready at all times.

2. Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

CLS measures the stability of the elements on your website. For effective websites, you’ll want to have steady pages throughout your entire website so that your content stays consistent as visitors click and move around. Preventing error clicks and confusion is crucial to a productive website. With so many options online, if visitors get frustrated on a page, they’ll simply move on to something easier to use. Page displays and content can shift slightly but ensure this is minimal by setting size attributes to page elements, videos, and images to keep things streamlined.

3. First Input Delay (FID)

FID is all about responsiveness and synergy. User experience is positive when your visitors can interact productively and without hassle during their time on your page. FID measures how much time your page takes to respond to a visitor’s clicks. Improve the loading speed on your page to prevent lagging and keep visitors’ frustrations at bay.

The future of SEO depends on Core Web Vitals and so does your website’s success. Even if your page looks good to you, you’ll want to take the behind-the-scenes factors into account to make sure you rank higher in search engine results. In today’s ever-changing world of tech, your website needs to be mobile friendly, promote secure and safe during browsing, is efficient and hassle free, and feels intuitive to each user. Avoid falling lower on the ranking list of search results by contacting Utah SEO Company today for assistance.