Over the next few months, Google Page Experience will be gradually updated. Google estimates that the update will be completed by August 2021. There’s still plenty of time to ensure your site is up-to-date and address any issues.
This major change will have a significant impact on how your website ranks in online searches. It is important to learn about the Google Page Experience update and how you can adapt to it.
In the SEO world, “Google Core Web Vitals”, has become a buzzword. If you want your website ready for the Page Experience update, Core Web Vitals is the new ranking signal that you need to align with.
It’s a smart idea to review your website and follow the steps of a trusted Google Page Experience Guide to increase your ranking and grow your leads.
Let’s now look at these ranking factors to see how we can improve Core Web Vitals scores for our website to make it more competitive.
Understanding Google Core Web Vitals
There are currently UX ranking signals that can be used to measure a website’s search rank, usability, and interactivity. These signals are what Google looks for, including mobile-friendly, safe surfing, HTTPS, and no intrusive extras.
The search giant announced in November 2020 that it would roll out the Page Experience update. This will add Core Web Vitals to its ranking signals.
This update aims to improve the user experience. Google considers Core Web Vitals as essential elements that improve a user’s browsing experience. Let’s look at the Core Web Vitals, and how they can be used to determine if your website aligns with these new ranking signals.
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP).
LCP is the time it takes for your website’s main content to load. Page loading times can affect the user’s experience on your website. LCP is an integral part of the Google algorithm updates. Your website should be easy to use. Users will leave your site if it takes too long for most content to load.
Core Web Vitals can be measured using a variety of tools. Technical SEO professionals use LCP testing tools to determine LCP. These include Google Search Console and Google PageSpeed Insight Tool.
Common Reasons for Low Lcp Score
You might want to investigate the following reasons why Core Web Vitals gives your site a low score in this metric:
- Server responsiveness
- Time to load resources
- JavaScript and CSS block rendering
- Client-side rendering
First Input Delay
Google Web Vitals’ First Input Delay measures the interactivity of your page. This metric measures the time between the time the user interacts with a page and the time the browser responds. This interaction could be a click or tap, keypress, or another type of interaction. A site with a lower FID can be deemed usable and interactive, and thus offer a positive user experience.
Because websites today are dynamic and touch-driven, this update is crucial. Site visitors expect a response within a fraction of a second. Site visitors consider a response time of fewer than 100 milliseconds instantaneous. This should be your goal.
Many tools can be used to measure Core Web Vitals. Lighthouse in DevTools can be used to measure FID. It includes Total Blocking Time, Dashboard, CrUX Report (CrUX), CrUX API, and PageSpeed Insights.
How to improve your FID
You can improve your FID by doing several things:
- Google Web Vitals can help you inspect your website and identify any problems.
- Reduce third-party codes
- Optimize internal linking
- You can delete any codes that are not needed from your files
- Test your page on various devices
- Use code-splitting
- Use the right tools to measure Google Web Vitals
Cumulative Layout Shifts (CLS).
Core Web Vitals also measures visual stability. CLS is the metric that corresponds with this. Did you ever try to click a button, but ended up clicking a link that was not there? Perhaps the layout of the page suddenly changed. This page scored low CLS metrics.
Your website may experience unexpected layout changes when it loads. This could include floating ads or links. You should seek the help of your web developers and technical SEO experts as these can affect your CLS metrics. These experts can inspect your website and help you improve your Core Web Vitals.
In April 2021 Google announced that they will make a change to the CLS metric. This measure measures the maximum session window with a 1-second gap and a limit of five seconds. You can measure Core Web Vitals, including your CLS, with tools. This can be measured in the lab using Lighthouse 6.0 and webpagetest.com as well as Chrome DevTools.
This can also be measured in real-time using Chrome’s User Experience Report or JavaScriptAI, Google PageSpeed Insights Tool, and Google Search Console Report.
Factors that Affect CLS
These are the most common factors that impact your CLS metric.
- Third-party widgets and ads, or iframes
- Fonts that produce Flash of Invisible Text or Flash of Unstyled Text
- Dynamically injected content
- Images and videos with unknown dimensions
- Inappropriate background image, HTML code image size
- Animations that alter the layout
- Before updating Document Object Model elements (DOM), actions pending a response from the network
Low CLS scores indicate that your page is stable. You should seek the help of technical SEO professionals and web developers if your page is not performing well on this metric. This will ensure that your website design is responsive, stable, and secure. If your ads or other elements on your page are preventing users from browsing your site smoothly, they are more likely to leave.
Miami Web designers and technical SEO experts can help you find the right balance between ads and content. They will ensure that your site is responsive across all browsers and devices.
Conclusion
Can a great Google Page Experience guarantee you the number-one spot? It won’t guarantee you the top spot immediately, but it will eventually. This is a potential “tiebreaker”, for website rankings in search engine result pages (SERPs). Sites with higher page experience and core web vital scores may move ahead in rankings (on the pages).
Google considers approximately 200 factors when determining page rank. It could give your competitors an advantage if you do not invest in optimizing the website for the latest Google algorithm update.
Understanding Google Web Vitals is essential to improve your Core Web Vitals. It is also important to learn the Core Web Vitals report so that you can develop a strategy if you are not happy with your scores.
