Google Core Web Vitals 101

Google Core Web Vitals

In May 2020, Google announced their new Google Core Web Vitals metrics, and by June 2020 these metrics became one of Google’s ranking signals.

What are Google’s New Core Web Vitals?

Google’s Core Web Vitals are user-focused metrics that are designed to measure the ‘health’ of a web page in order to have a smooth and seamless user experience. Through these metrics, Google tells us exactly what it wants and believes are the essentials of delivering a great user experience. All site owners and SEO specialists should focus on Core Web Vital metrics when optimising their user experience. This is because when a site passes all these metrics it will significantly improve the website's opportunity to rank on search results.

Google’s Core Web Vital is split into 3 metrics - LCP, FID and CLS. All three metrics represent important user-centric outcomes. Let's deep dive into these metrics and understand what they each measure.

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

The Largest Contentful Paint metric refers to the average loading time and how quickly the main content loads on a page. It is important for a website to have a good LCP score to prove the best possible experience for customers. As technology and networks become faster and faster, users today do not want and do not have time to wait around for content to load up on a website. Therefore, the faster users can access content on a site, the more likely they will interact and/or purchase.

The ideal LCP score is less than or equal to 2.5 seconds.

First Input Delay (FID)

The First Input Delay metric refers to the time it takes for a page to become interactive with users. This is the time it takes the page to execute any action or comment inputted by the user, for example, clicks on a banner or product. The first input can range from clicking links, and buttons on the site to pressing keys.

The ideal FID score is less than or equal to 100ms.

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

The Cumulative Layout Shift metric measures the website stability when it loads and the number of unexpected layout shifts of visuals on the page. I’m sure we have all experienced a site where imagery shifts down unexpectedly while the page loads resulting in clicking the wrong link or simply exiting the page as it gets unbearable. This indicates that the site has a bad CLS score meaning the page elements are not stable. To avoid this from happening, maintaining a good CLS score is very important.

The ideal CLS score is less than or equal to 0.1.

Why Core Web Vitals are Important to a Business

Optimising a website to meet the ideal Core Web Vital scores is important and is the key to long-term success. These metrics can help you quantify the experience of your site and help identify any areas of improvement - ultimately achieving the end goal of giving users a good website experience. Core Web Vitals play an extremely important role in SEO. Maintaining healthy LCP, FID and CLS scores will give your website more recognition, will help improve site visibility and rankings in Google search results and will provide users with a hassle-free experience while exploring the site.

How to Measure Core Web Vitals

The three Core Web Vital metrics can be measured using the following tools: Google Search Console, Pagespeed Insights, Lighthouse, Chrome Devtools, Chrome UX Report, and Web Vital Extension.

Core Web Vital reports are now available in Search Console. This report identifies any pages that require attention based on real-world data from the Chrome UX report.

Want to improve your site’s Core Web Vital scores? At Blackpepper, our developers and SEO team specialise in Core Web Vitals and can help get your website where you want it to be. Feel free to get in contact for a free quote.