What to Know:
– Core Web Vitals are a set of metrics that measure the user experience of a website, including page loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability.
– Google has announced that Core Web Vitals will become a ranking factor in May 2021.
– To pass Google’s Core Web Vitals assessment, website owners need to optimize their page speed and user experience.
– The three main metrics of Core Web Vitals are Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS).
– LCP measures the time it takes for the largest element on a page to load, with a good score being under 2.5 seconds.
– FID measures the time it takes for a page to become interactive, with a good score being under 100 milliseconds.
– CLS measures the visual stability of a page, with a good score being under 0.1.
– There are several tools available to measure and analyze Core Web Vitals, including Google’s PageSpeed Insights, Lighthouse, and Chrome User Experience Report.
The Full Story:
Google’s Core Web Vitals are a set of metrics that measure the user experience of a website. These metrics include page loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability. Google has announced that Core Web Vitals will become a ranking factor in May 2021, meaning that websites that provide a better user experience will be rewarded with higher rankings in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
To pass Google’s Core Web Vitals assessment and improve page speed, website owners need to optimize their website’s performance. There are three main metrics that make up Core Web Vitals: Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS).
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) measures the time it takes for the largest element on a page to load. This could be an image, a video, or a block of text. A good LCP score is considered to be under 2.5 seconds. To improve LCP, website owners can optimize their images and videos, reduce server response time, and leverage browser caching.
First Input Delay (FID) measures the time it takes for a page to become interactive. This metric is important because it measures how quickly users can interact with a website. A good FID score is considered to be under 100 milliseconds. To improve FID, website owners can minimize JavaScript execution time, optimize third-party scripts, and use a content delivery network (CDN) to reduce network latency.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) measures the visual stability of a page. This metric looks at how much the page layout shifts as it loads, which can be frustrating for users. A good CLS score is considered to be under 0.1. To improve CLS, website owners can specify image and video dimensions, avoid inserting new content above existing content, and use CSS animations instead of JavaScript animations.
To measure and analyze Core Web Vitals, website owners can use various tools provided by Google. Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool provides a detailed analysis of a website’s performance, including Core Web Vitals metrics. Lighthouse is another tool that can be used to measure and improve a website’s performance. It provides a comprehensive report on various aspects of a website’s performance, including Core Web Vitals. The Chrome User Experience Report is a public dataset that provides real-world performance data for popular websites, which can be used to benchmark a website’s performance against others.
In conclusion, optimizing Core Web Vitals is crucial for website owners who want to improve their page speed, enhance user experience, and achieve higher rankings in the SERPs. By focusing on metrics such as LCP, FID, and CLS, website owners can make the necessary improvements to their website’s performance and provide a better user experience for their visitors. Using tools like Google’s PageSpeed Insights, Lighthouse, and the Chrome User Experience Report can help website owners measure and analyze their Core Web Vitals and make informed decisions on how to optimize their website.
Original article: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/improve-core-web-vitals-debugbear-spa/501049/