Google has announced that page experience will now become a part of its search engine ranking signals. This update is being referred to as the Google Core Web Vitals Update.
Core Web Vitals are a set of metrics that Google considers important to a web page user experience. They are used to measure a website’s loading, interactivity and visual stability.
This update will be rolled out in May of this year.
How will this affect you?
If you’re investing in SEO or interested in getting found on Google and your website doesn’t pass Google’s Core Web Vitals test then ranking high on Google will be even more challenging. If you are ranking high already, you may start to experience a drop in rankings.
What are the Core Web Vitals?
Core web vitals looks at 3 main metrics:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) measures loading performance. To provide a good user experience, LCP should occur within 2.5 seconds of when the page first starts loading or a maximum of 4 seconds to avoid a “poor” score (although between 2.5 and 4 seconds still “needs improvement”).
- First Input Delay (FID) measures interactivity (i.e., how long it takes for the website to respond when a user clicks on something). To provide a good user experience, pages should have an FID of less than 100 milliseconds or a maximum of 300 milliseconds to avoid a “poor” score (although between 100 and 300 milliseconds still “needs improvement”).
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) measures visual stability (i.e., whether or not the page jumps around as the user scrolls through the content). To provide a good user experience, pages should maintain a CLS of less than 0.1 or a minimum of 0.25 to avoid a “poor” score (although between 0.1 and 0.25 still “needs improvement”).
3 Steps to Getting Ready for Google’s Core Web Vitals Update
1. Ensure that your website is setup in Google Search Console (GSC). If your website is not setup on GSC or you don’t know what GSC is you can access a Google Search Console Guide here.
2. Review the Core Web Vitals Report in GSC for both Desktop and Mobile.
3. Have your web developer resolve any issues that’s rated poor or needs improvement.