Core Web Vitals are an exciting new set of metrics being introduced by Google to measure page experience and potentially influence search rankings. These measurements can be found both field data and laboratory data sources such as Lighthouse, Chrome DevTools and real user monitoring tools.
Improving your website’s Core Web Vitals score requires taking an integrated approach to web design and development. Let’s examine three metrics – Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID) and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS).
1. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
LCP (Lag between Content and Viewport) is one of Google’s Core Web Vitals metrics used to measure page speed and performance. This metric measures how long it takes for the largest element on a webpage to load in its viewport – often an image or text block, but sometimes an animation or video. When your website’s LCP score exceeds what is ideal, take steps to optimize and enhance user experience immediately.
An optimal LCP score should be under 2.5 seconds. LCP accounts for 25% of PageSpeed Insights score; improving it could help boost your grade significantly. There are multiple tools that can monitor LCP on websites, such as Google PageSpeed Insights and Chrome DevTools.
Both of these free tools provide you with a quick overview of your website’s performance and reveal where there may be potential issues. PageSpeed Insights includes both lab-based LCP data as well as real world user experience data from Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX). Please keep in mind that CrUX only covers select popular websites; therefore results may differ slightly from your actual website.
DebugBear can also help you collect LCP data by performing scheduled tests on your site to gauge its performance with real users. These tests analyze your entire network – including CDN – to pinpoint where performance issues exist on your website, so that you can optimize network configuration or content to speed it up and make your user experience better.
Though not the sole ranking factors, Core Web Vitals do play an integral part in how search engines rank pages. Search engines aim to ensure their users are happy with the results they find, which means prioritizing websites that load quickly as part of providing great user experiences. That is why prioritizing LCP, FID and CLS so your users enjoy an exceptional browsing experience and increase chances of being discovered by search engines as well as having them spend more time on your site.
2. First Input Delay (FID)
First Input Delay (FID) is one of the three Core Web Vitals metrics Google employs to assess page experience. It measures the time between when users interact with a webpage (for instance by clicking buttons or custom JavaScript-powered controls), and when their browser begins processing that input. FID can have a major effect on visitor satisfaction as well as being one factor Google uses when ranking search engine results.
Many websites struggle to meet the standards for an acceptable FID score due to this metric’s dependence on real-world user data and an inability to be measured with lab tools. FID only considers how long it takes the browser to start processing input events after they have been registered; not how long it takes the main thread to finish loading all required elements and execute associated scripts.
Ideal FID scores should be 100 milliseconds or lower to ensure a page feels responsive to user input and keeps visitors engaged with its content. A higher FID score has been linked with higher conversions and increased website traffic – both key components for SEO success.
Increased website FID scores generally require optimizing multiple aspects of its code and design, such as decreasing or deferring third-party script usage and configuring pages correctly with size attributes to reduce layout changes as much as possible. It is also vital that elements load simultaneously so as to prevent layout shifts while new elements load in parallel.
Even with these best practices in place, a website could still have a high FID score and still be slow. This is because metrics such as LCP and CLS take into account how long pages take to render, which can vary based on external factors like connection speed or network latency. Therefore, to improve one’s FID score it’s essential that they focus on increasing loading performance overall.
3. Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
Imagine reading an article on the New York Times website when suddenly an advertisement loads before your eyes and shifts all text content downward – this unexpected movement is known as layout shift and was one of Google’s main priorities when developing its Core Web Vitals metrics.
The CLS metric measures how much visual stability of a website is compromised by unexpected shifts during load time, with scores determined by how many layout shifts take place over five seconds. Expected layout shifts such as those caused by user interactions aren’t included because they are part of their experience – however unexpected shifting caused by ads animations or transitions can increase its value significantly.
Google recommends that a good CLS score should be less than 0.1 for 75% of all pages visited; PageSpeed Insights offers free tools that help websites optimize performance.
To increase your CLS score, ensure that no ads or animations are loading before your main page content has finished loading. Also ensure your images and videos are tagged properly so they load smoothly; finally be aware that ad blockers may slow down load time or cause layout shifts.
By following these tips, you can take steps to increase your CLS score and provide a superior browsing experience for visitors. Better still, optimizing isn’t difficult – so start optimizing today!
4. Interaction to Next Paint (INP)
Google puts great emphasis on user experience when ranking websites, and prioritizing LCP, FID and CLS are crucial steps towards SEO optimization of any site. By increasing INP score on your website and providing visitors with a smooth browsing experience they’ll return again and again for browsing pleasure – plus it will help rank higher in Google searches!
INP (Instant Page Reaction Time) measures the time it takes for a web page to respond to an interaction by a visitor with any element on its page, using real user data from Chrome users who visit your website. Introduced as one of the Core Web Vitals Metrics in March 2024 as a replacement to First Input Delay (FID),
For accurate measurement of INP scores, free website speed tests which support real user testing are the way forward. Such tools also offer valuable metrics like LCP and CLS for evaluation of core web vitals like these; one such popular option from Google’s PageSpeed Insights (PSI) provides a more in-depth evaluation of page performance including these metrics as well as additional factors.
Though there are various strategies for increasing your INP score, the key to doing so is minimizing CPU processing on your page. You can do this by minimizing scripts running concurrently or running more code asynchronously; additionally, make sure your plugins are updated and optimized for performance.
If you want to increase your INP score, creating a thoughtful strategy is paramount to successful enhancement. A plan allows you to set realistic goals and take the necessary steps towards their fulfillment – this may involve auditing your current INP score, analyzing its strengths and weaknesses, setting objectives, or designing an improvement plan with priority tasks in mind.
Importantly, Internet Network Performance (INP) is a field metric derived from real user data from Chrome browsers. INP scores are only calculated for pages meeting certain popularity thresholds such as having sufficient usage statistics, enabling usage statistic reporting, not using Sync passphrases and being accessible to desktop and Android Chrome browser users – any page not popular enough for INP scoring will not have an effect on SEO efforts.