Over the last few years, Google has been focusing more and more on user experience as a factor to rank various websites on its SERP. If you are into the digital arena, I’m assuming you already know that the platform is promoting content that is in line with the user’s search intent and easy to access. In simple words, the overall user experience.

Understanding Core Web Vital and User-Experiences

With that being said, recently, it’s important to know that Google has come up with a system of metrics called the Core Web Vitals. Under this umbrella term, google is specifically measuring three aspects of a website that the platform believes are essential for the user’s experience with the website.

Let’s understand what these three core web vitals are, and how they affect the user experience and thus the ranking of a website.

Core Web Vitals

Until now, google measured a website’s efficiency based on four major factors:

  • Responsiveness
  • Safety
  • SSL certification
  • Lack of pop-up ads

However, as discussed above, the search engine is now adding three more metrics to the list.

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

In simple words, we can define LCP or Largest Contentful Paint as the time it takes for the website to display the main content. Google suggests that, ideally, it should not be more than 2.5 seconds.
Suggestions to improve LCP:

  • Remove any large elements on your page
  • Get a better web host
  • Remove any third-party scripts if not required
  • Set up lazy loading

First Input Display (FID)

First Input Display or FID is the measure of the time website usually takes to respond to the first user interaction. Example include:

  • Choosing something from the menu
  • Entering an email id into a field
  • Clicking on a link

The less time it takes for the result to be displayed after clicking a button gives you a lower FID. And this can significantly improve the overall user experience.
Suggestions to improve FID:

  • Minimize JavaScript
  • Use browser cache
  • Remove unnecessary third-party scripts

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

Cumulative Layout Shift or CLS measures if the page is changing when a user is navigating or not. In simple words, it’s how consistent is the overall layout when a visitor clicks on a button or anything else or when the website loads. If the fluctuations are high and the elements on the page move too much, it leads to a higher CLS score.

Stability means a better CLS score. And a low CLS score means a better user experience.
Suggestions to improve CLS:

  • Give ads a reserved place
  • Do not add any new UI elements in between the fold
  • Use a set size for any type of media

As it’s clear on its own, if your website scores well in all these areas, Google is going to reward it by ranking it higher on the SERP. Also, as the search engine improves its understanding of user experience in the future, it may update these core web vitals annually. So, I’d suggest, get started on getting these metrics sorted on your website. It’s going to benefit you only as a business.

Still got some doubts about the latest Core Web Vitals update? Contact Designworkz, and let the team of best digital marketers help you win the game.