What will Google’s Core Web Vitals affect your site’s rank?

26 Oct. 22
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Our SEO Agency experts explain why Google’s new metrics are now ranking factors.

 

In May 2020, the first signs of Google’s Core Web Vitals were heard. These new metrics would promote or degrade a website’s rank based on user experiences. SOZO, a forward-thinking web agency, has assisted many online businesses prepare for Core Web Vitals becoming an official ranking factor. After many delays by Google, the day has finally arrived. Google will gradually roll out Core Web Vitals updates to its search engine ranking algorithm, starting June 15th 2021 and ending August 2021.

Is it possible to rank higher on Core Web Vitals? It’s possible. This is a quick overview of what Core Web Vitals can do for you and how an SEO agency can help your online business.

 

What are Core Web Vitals and How Do They Work?

 

Let’s first go over those metrics. Google Core Web Vitals measures your website’s loading time (otherwise known by Largest Contentful paint), interactivity (First input delay) and visual stability (Cumulative layout shift). These three metrics provide Google with a snapshot of how visitors experience your website. Google will now factor in elements such as mobile-friendliness, safety, and browsing safety.

 

Core Web Vitals don’t mean nothing. They can have a huge impact on your website’s sales and goals. Visitors are 24% less likely not to leave a website that meets Google’s criteria. Cheltenham SEO agencySOZO will make sure that user experience (UX), is a top priority during the build. We’ll also ensure that your Core Web Essentials are as high-quality as possible. Google’s spiders are satisfied, so your customers will be satisfied too.

 

What are the Core Web Vitals scores of most websites?

 

It’s a bad idea. Recent research by Searchmetrics found that 96% of websites failed to score a good score on all three Core Web Vitals. This includes everything from code bloat and non-optimised images. These factors are responsible for preventing UX. Further studies have shown that mobile web users are distracted for between four and eight seconds. The bounce rate rises by 106% when pages load in excess of one to six seconds. It is easy to see how ignoring user experience can lead to serious consequences.

 

What impact will Core Web Vitals have on search rankings going forward?

 

It is a significant factor. Google still uses over 200 ranking factors in its algorithm. This means that CWVs can have a different impact on each website’s overall ranking. It’s important to consider which factors will have the greatest impact on your ultimate goal of sales or form submissions, when you are weighing up a specific Core Web Vital score. Our SEO and web design agency experts team at SOZO will help you to find the best payoff.

What are the main factors that influence Core Web Vitals scores and how can they be improved?

Your overall CWV score is most at risk if you don’t:

  • Excessive use of plugins.
  • Poorly coded/supported plug-ins
  • Excessive or large images can put extra strain on load times
  • Not using a content delivery system (e.g. Sirv).
  • Many styling and functionality files (CSS, JS) that have not been consolidated and minified.

 

Let’s take a closer look at the three CWV types. According to our experience, the following are some of the main causes of low Cumulative Layout Shift scores (CLS).

 

  • Adverts can cause any layout change.
  • Banners/notices for cookies
  • Images that do not have dimensions
  • Dynamically injected content
  • Embeds and Iframes without dimensions
  • FOIT/FOUT can be caused by web fonts

 

Our web design experts recommend that you avoid First Input Delay (FID).

 

  • Long tasks (Heavy JavaScript mostly).
  • JavaScript execution takes a long time.
  • JavaScript bundles large in size
  • Render-blocking JavaScript.

 

All of this will make your score worse when it comes to Largest-Contentful Paint (LCP).

 

  • Slow server response time.
  • Java and CSS blocks rendering
  • Slow loading resources, especially images and video files

 

How can I combine excellent site content with high Core Web Vitals scores

Online businesses must balance their needs. How can you combine the features that convert visitors to your site with the boxes that will allow for high CWVs?

For example, take a website for a travel agency. If all other factors are equal, a page without images will load quicker than one with many photos. However, in practice, this will lead to a less inspiring experience that can hurt conversion rates. Pages with third-party scripts/plugins will improve page speed and drive sales.

This is a constant battle that should be at your core of website building. We’ll talk about it when we meet with SOZO SEO team.

How can I tell if my website is performing well on Core Web Vitals

Google offers a Core Web Vitals report within its search console. This provides key information about your website’s user-experience. You’ll find URL performance categorized by status, metric, and URL group. Ratings range from ‘good,’ to ‘needs improvement,’ and ‘poor. You should aim for a load time of 2.5 seconds or less, with a First Input Delayed measurement under 100 seconds, and a Cumulative Layout Shift (or less) of 0.01. You might notice that your Core Web Vitals are not quite right in practice. This is where the help of a web design agency can be invaluable.

 

What other tools are available to measure page speed and website performance?

 

Google’s Search Console does not provide the only method to gauge your website’s performance and measure its metrics. You can try a variety of tools to find the one that suits you best, including PageSpeed Insights or Lighthouse. If you prefer that SOZO’s SEO experts drill into your data, you can simply say so.

 

What other factors are included in Google’s Page Experience algorithm updates? When does it take effect?

 

You’ll find more information in Google’s Page Experience algorithm update. It includes the Core Web Vitals as well as the other strands. This update will be available between June 15th-2021. These are the essential elements of any web design.

Mobile Friendly

How does your website perform when accessed via a smartphone? Side note: Google Ads now considers mobile page speed when calculating Ad Rank.

Safe browsing

Is your website containing any deceptive or malicious content, such as malware and social engineering?

HTTPS

Can visitors trust the integrity and confidentiality in data transmitted between their computer, the site, and the page?

No Intrusive Interstitials

Are there disruptive banners, popups or overlays on your site that are threatening user experience?

 

How can I improve the Core Web Vitals of my website?

 

You’ve found that your website is failing on all three Core Web Vitals. Google will now relegate it. SOZO is the place to be. We offer award-winning web design in Cheltenham.

Our team will help you rank higher in search engines as Google’s Core Web Vitals becomes a reality.

Lets Nurture Agency can help you improve your website’s user experience.

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