Websites receive all sorts of traffic from many different users. Be it a sports website or a social media website, there are many different types of users visiting these websites with very different experiences. Imagine you were running your website, wouldn’t it be cool to be able to measure user experience on your website? Well with Core Web Vitals or CWV for short, you can do exactly that.
How does Core Web Vitals work?
Introduced by google, the core web vitals aim to determine user experience on a website. Core Web Vitals has three different components to it that provide feedback on user experience.
These are:
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
This factor in CWV is concerned with the speed at which the website loads in. There are multiple ways in which Google can measure your speed, previously it was done by taking into account how long it takes to load the first piece of content on your webpage. More recently, it was changed to the largest image or content on your page, hence the name largest contentful paint.
First input delay (FID)
The first input delay is concerned with the interactivity of a website or page. The FID of a page is there to put a number on the delay the user might feel when interacting with aspects of the website or webpage. It is measured by looking at the time it takes between the user’s input or click, and the action it performs.
Cumulative layout shift (CLS)
Cumulative layout shift measures the changes in the layout of your website. When a user visits your website, there will be an initial layout they see. Any changes in that layout or the order of items on the page affect the CLS. Cumulative layout shift is measured by google using a scale that sees how much your content moves after the page is initially loaded.
Why are Core Web Vitals important for websites?
There are two primary reasons why core web vitals are important for your website.
SEO
Many website owners will go for SEO services to try and improve their website search engine optimization so their website becomes more visible and appears more commonly in searches. CWV is an essential part of SEO as websites with better CWV metrics will be better optimized for search engine searches. The layout of your website and how well it works is very important for SEO and any company or agency you go to for help in SEO will help you with your core web
vitals.
User Experience
Other than improving SEO, Core web vitals are also just important for the reason that your user’s experience will be better. If users feel that they had a positive experience with your website, there is a much higher chance that they will visit it more commonly. Websites with poor core web vitals are bound to frustrate the users and will not be able to keep them longer on the website.
How are they improved for each aspect?
When looking to improve your website’s core web vitals, it is important to look at each aspect separately. Afterward, see where the improvements can be made.
LCP
To improve your LCP the best approach is to see how you can render the largest element the quickest way. To do this you might need to look at many elements of your website and look properly optimize it so the loading speeds aren’t that high.
FID
This is highly concerned with your scripts and code on your website. So, to improve your FID you must start there. For lower delay times, it is best to look at the impact of third-party software on your website. Then, look at your JavaScript if you are using it.
CLS
Certain steps you should always follow when making your website to help you a lot in preventing CLS problems. Firstly you mustn’t put content on top of each other. This can force images and text to move around a lot. For CLS it is also beneficial to have the content on the page load separately and in turn. So, your page loads in a sequential manner.
