Understanding Core Web Vitals For SEO Fix UX For Better Rankings

Google does its best to improve its users’ browsing experience. Sites with better user experience (UX) always rank high on its search engine result pages (SERPs).

If you want to rank high on Google, too, you should work on improving your site’s UX. The search engine giant has made things easier for you with a set of metrics. These are the Core Web Vitals every website creator should follow to rank high on Google SERPs.

The best SEO Consulting Services and globally follow these user experience metrics. Work with trusted SEO consultants who will guide you and help you increase your site’s UX.

Google’s Core Web Vitals help you analyze your website and indicate where you should improve. When you improve the UX, your chances of ranking high on SERPs increase.

Let us understand the basics of Core Web Vitals and explore how you can improve these metrics for better rankings.

What Are Core Web Vitals?

Core Web Vitals are the metrics that improve a website’s user experience according to Google. They help you determine your site’s performance based on its loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability.

How well your site performs on these metrics determines its UX, ultimately determining its position on Google SERPs. These metrics help you assess your website based on three key parameters:

•       Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
•       Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
•       Interaction to Next Paint (INP)

We will discuss the thresholds for these metrics later in the blog.

Why Do Core Web Vitals Matter?

High performance on all Core Web Vitals improves your website’s UX. It ensures that your website loads fast and runs smoothly.

Ranking high on these metrics also improves your site’s SEO. When you improve Google users’ experience, the search engine will rank your site high on its SERPs.

Ultimately, Google’s Core Web Vitals guide you in improving its overall performance. They also increase the chances of your visitors staying longer and engaging with you instead of bouncing off early.

What Thresholds Does Google Recommend For Core Web Vitals?

Now that you know what Core Web Vitals are and what they include, let us understand the recommended thresholds. Here are the ideal measures Google recommends for every metric:

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

LCP measures the time the largest element on your page takes to load. Measured in seconds, this metric determines how long your visitors have to wait to see the contents of your website.

Google recommends a maximum LCP of 2.5 seconds; the lesser the better. It is best if all the main and large contents of your site (image, video, text, etc.) load within 2.5 seconds of a visitor landing on it.

If your site’s LCP lies between 2.6 and 4 seconds, it needs some improvement. This indicates that your audience is waiting for a bit too long after landing on your site. You may see a high bounce rate if this issue persists.

An LCP of more than 4 seconds is considered pretty poor. No matter how good your content is, this may irritate your visitors and dissuade them from clicking on your site again.

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

CLS is all about a web page’s visual organization. It denotes the stability of your site’s layout when a visitor lands on it. If the layout moves around (shifts) a lot before the page loads completely, it hampers the UX.

The Cumulative Layout Shift of a website is expressed with a score. The best score a site can get here is less than 0.1. This indicates that your website layout is pretty stable throughout the loading time. A CLS score of less than 0.1 improves user experience as the visitors face no disruptions while browsing.

Your site needs some maintenance if its CLS score falls between 0.1 and 0.25. This score indicates that your audience is witnessing slight layout instability as your website loads.

Finally, a CLS score over 0.25 means that the shift in your site’s layout is clearly noticeable. Your website can now start bothering Google users, dissuading them from visiting your site again. You see such a score when elements like buttons, images, and text keep jumping around before your webpage loads.

Interaction To Next Paint (INP)

This Core Web Vitals Metric is all about how seamless a user’s experience is while interacting with your website. It determines the time between a visitor acting and the result being displayed.

INP is a new metric that replaced First Input Delay early last year. It is useful in measuring how quickly your website navigates interactions. You can measure this metric in milliseconds.

A user may perform multiple actions while spending time on a webpage. Under such circumstances, INP is measured for the response that took the longest.

Let’s say a user clicked a button and zoomed in on a map on your webpage. The response time for both these actions is measured and the longer one will be your INP.

Google recommends an INP less than 200 milliseconds. The best websites won’t take more than 0.2 seconds to respond to the actions you take while browsing them.

An INP between 200 and 500 milliseconds indicates that your website needs some improvement. You should work on your site’s interactivity to bring the INP down.

If the time crosses 500 milliseconds, your website needs serious improvement. This score denotes that your visitors are spending quite some time between performing an action and seeing results. Persistent delayed responses will increase your website’s bounce rate.

How To Fix Your UX According To Core Web Vitals

Google’s Core Web Vitals indicate the areas you should focus on to improve your site’s UX. Work with experienced developers and SEO experts in India to provide the best browsing experience to your target audience.

Here are the basics of what you can do to fix your site’s UX according to the three Core Web Vitals metrics:

Reducing LCP

You can reduce the time your site takes to load by optimizing all its images. Compress hefty images to make them load faster. It is also better to use WebP and other web-friendly formats while uploading pictures.

Many developers encourage enabling page caching. Doing this stores your webpage on the server when it loads completely for the first time. Visitors can then retrieve the page and its information later.

Another effective way of improving LCP is by upgrading web hosting. Shared hosting involves multiple websites being hosted by a single server, thereby reducing their speed. Cloud hosting and other dedicated hosting plans can increase your site’s loading speed.

Reducing CLS

You can reduce your site’s CLS score by adding specific size attributes to your media (images, videos, etc.). Be precise while mentioning details like height and width. This lets the browser save the necessary space for your media files while loading your page.

Developers also recommend adding aspect ratio boxes to your CSS code. Here, the container for your site’s content will keep the same width-to-height ratio for all screens.

You should also choose your fonts carefully for a better CLS score. Avoid using fonts that need downloading before the browser displays your site. It is best to stick to fonts easily available on all devices.

Reducing INP

Numerous large scripts and a lot of JavaScript code can increase your INP time. You can improve this metric by minimizing JavaScript and other non-essential codes used for your site

You can also break up lengthy and complex tasks the browser performs into smaller actions to increase your site’s interactivity. A trusted site audit tool can help you find such lengthy tasks. These tools also guide you in segmenting the tasks and reducing your site’s INP time.

The Final Word

Core Web Vitals play an important role in improving your website’s UX. Address each of the three metrics individually to boost your site’s performance. When the visitors get a seamless browsing experience, your site’s Google ranking can improve.

Hire skilled and experienced SEO professionals to improve your website’s performance according to Core Web Vitals. These experts will perform thorough audits, find the gaps to fill, and make the necessary changes to your site. The search engine ladder is difficult to climb but things can definitely get easier if you are on the right track. If you wish to impress Google as well as your visitors, consider these metrics even before you build your website!