Imagine this scenario: You’ve put in countless hours creating quality content, refining your design and optimising for search engines, only to receive the disheartening notification that your Core Web Vitals assessment has failed.
What now?
This setback signals a crucial juncture for your online presence—a moment to reassess, recalibrate, and propel your website towards excellence.
What are Core Web Vitals?
Core Web Vitals are a set of metrics introduced by Google to measure the overall user experience of your website. These metrics focus on key aspects of usability and user interactions, such as loading performance, interactivity, and visual stability.
The primary Core Web Vitals are Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). Together, they provide a comprehensive view of how your website performs from a user's perspective.
Your Core Web Vitals Score
So what's a good website health score?
A good website health score means that your site meets or exceeds the recommended thresholds for all three Core Web Vitals metrics.
Here are the benchmarks for each metric:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Should occur within 2.5 seconds of when the page first starts loading.
- First Input Delay (FID): Should be less than 100 milliseconds.
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): Should maintain a score of less than 0.1.
Image source: Raygun
Analysing Core Web Vitals Metrics
You can run a Core Web Vital test to see how your site performs. Meeting these standards ensures a smooth and enjoyable experience for visitors, leading to higher engagement and better search engine rankings.
If your Core Web Vitals assessment has failed, it's crucial to act. Start by identifying which metrics are below the threshold and then work on improving them. This might involve:
- Optimising images
- Enhancing server response times
- Improving JavaScript execution time to reduce your website's loading speed
- Minifying and compressing CSS and JavaScript files to decrease page size
- Refining CSS for better visual stability
Addressing these issues will boost your site's performance, page speed, provide a better user experience, and improve your search rankings. Remember, a healthy website is key to attracting and keeping visitors, so these improvements are well worth the effort.
How Do I Check My Core Web Vitals Score?
Checking your Core Web Vitals score is easy and can be done using several tools:
Google Search Console:
- Select your website property.
- Navigate to the "Core Web Vitals" report under the "Enhancements" section to see detailed metrics.
PageSpeed Insights:
- Enter your website URL and click "Analyse."
- Review the Core Web Vitals metrics in the results.
Google Lighthouse:
- Open Google Chrome and navigate to your website.
- Right-click on the page and select "Inspect."
- Go to the "Lighthouse" tab and click "Generate report."
- Review the Core Web Vitals scores in the generated report. (The Lighthouse score given by Google is based on a website visit under simulated conditions (lab data))
Web Vitals Extension:
- Install the Web Vitals extension from the Chrome Web Store.
- Open your website in Chrome and click on the extension icon to see the Core Web Vitals metrics.
What are Common Reasons for Failing Core Web Vitals?
So why do core web vitals assessments fail? 5 Common reasons include:
- Slow Loading Times: Web pages take too long to load, affecting the Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) metric.
- Delayed Interactivity: Users experience delays when trying to interact with the page, impacting the First Input Delay (FID) metric.
- Unexpected Layout Shifts: Elements on the page move unexpectedly during loading, leading to a poor Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) score.
- Large JavaScript Files: Heavy JavaScript files can slow down the loading and interactivity of your site.
- Unoptimised Images: Large or uncompressed images can significantly increase web page load times.
Identifying the specific causes will help you target your efforts effectively.
Using Google Search Console to Monitor Your Website Performance
Keep a close eye on your website's performance with Google Search Console (GSC) to ensure it stays in top shape. GSC is a free tool that helps you monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot your site's presence in Google Search results.
Use it to:
- Track performance metrics: View detailed reports on clicks, impressions, and average position.
- Monitor Core Web Vitals: Check how your site performs against Core Web Vitals metrics and identify pages that need improvement.
- Fix indexing issues: Ensure all important pages are indexed by Google and address any errors.
- Check mobile usability: Identify and fix mobile usability issues to enhance the user experience.
Regularly using GSC helps you stay on top of your website's health, quickly identify problems and then make necessary improvements to keep your site running smoothly and ranking well in search results.
Using the Chrome User Experience Report
The Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) provides real-world user experience data, collected from users who have opted in to share their browsing data. Here's how you can use it:
- Accessing CrUX Data:
- You can access CrUX data through the PageSpeed Insights tool or directly via the BigQuery project in the Google Cloud Platform.
- Analysing Performance:
- CrUX data helps you understand how real users experience your site. It provides insights into metrics like LCP, FID, and CLS based on actual user data.
- Benchmarking:
- Use CrUX data to benchmark your site's performance against industry standards or competitors.
- Making Improvements:
- Leverage the insights from CrUX to identify areas for improvement and track the impact of changes over time.
By using CrUX, you gain a deeper understanding of your website's performance from a user perspective, allowing you to make data-driven decisions to enhance the user experience.
Monitoring and Maintaining Core Web Vitals Over Time
Ongoing monitoring and site maintenance is important to keep Core Web Vitals scores above average.
This is what we recommend at Digital Architects:
- Regular Core Web Vital Audits: How often to check and what to look for.
- Automated Monitoring Tools: Tools that can continuously monitor and alert you to issues.
- Staying Updated with Google's Changes: Keeping up-to-date with Google's algorithms and recommendations.
Common Misconceptions About Core Web Vitals
There are several misconceptions about Core Web Vitals that can lead to ineffective optimisation strategies.
Here are a few common ones:
- Myth: Core Web Vitals are not important for small websites.
- Reality: Regardless of the size of your website, Core Web Vitals are critical for providing a good user experience and achieving better search engine rankings.
- Myth: Improving Core Web Vitals is too complex.
- Reality: While it can be challenging, many improvements are straightforward and can significantly enhance performance.
- Myth: Only developers need to care about Core Web Vitals.
- Reality: Marketers, designers, and content creators also play a role in optimising web performance.
The Impact of Core Web Vitals on SEO and User Experience
Core Web Vitals have a significant impact on both SEO and user experience. Here’s how:
- SEO Benefits: Google uses Core Web Vitals as a ranking factor, meaning better scores can lead to improved visibility in search engine results. Websites that load quickly, interact smoothly, and maintain visual stability are favoured by Google’s algorithms.
- User Experience: High Core Web Vitals scores ensure a better user experience, which can lead to increased engagement, higher conversion rates, and lower bounce rates. When users have a positive experience on your site, they are more likely to stay longer, return in the future, and recommend your site to others.
Optimising Core Web Vitals for Enhanced Performance and Lasting Success
By consistently monitoring and maintaining your Core Web Vitals, you can enhance your website’s performance, improve your SEO rankings, and provide a superior experience for your users.
At Digital Architects, we’re dedicated to helping you achieve and maintain high Core Web Vitals scores for lasting success. Reach out for a strategy consult.