While the creation of content that readers find fascinating and valuable will always be at the center of your content strategy, you are aware of the increasing burden that search engines place on user experience, particularly for people using mobile phones. Your content’s effectiveness is crucial to achieving your clients’ acquisition goals and, by extension, your lead generation results.
However, tracking key performance indicators is nothing new for content marketers. And, while it seems simple to track page load times and other information, there is still some element of trial and error because search engines don’t publicly disclose the mechanics that power their algorithms or the details of their monthly changes.
Therefore, it is essential to be on the lookout for any new suggestions or tools Google may provide. This includes Core Web Vitals (CWV), a new set of metrics that Google released to assist website owners in bettering their visitors’ online experiences.
What are Core Web Vitals (CWV) In Terms I Can Understand?
Google has long believed that providing its consumers with high-quality, relevant information is the best way to meet the needs of both the company and its users. But as with continued internet growth over the years, Google has started analyzing more information based on user experience. Even though many media outlets still disregard Google’s suggestions as useless “web hygiene,” doing so can help you get an advantage over the competition.
Core Web Vitals are a number of measures that gauge how well your site loads and how user-friendly it is. They include measures of visual stability, interactivity, and loading time.
The three Core Web Vitals metrics are:
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
This metric measures how long it takes for the largest element on your page to load. In other words, LCP monitors how long it takes for a page to transition from being completely unresponsive to displaying its largest text block or picture element.
Every second of delay costs users thousands of prospective consumers, and as you are well aware, users have minimal patience for such things. Low LCP scores are not enough to simply pick your largest page element with care; huge files, CCS, and server-side factors can all play a role. If you want to get serious about improving your LCP, aiming for less than 2.5 seconds is a good benchmark.
First Input Delay (FID)
This scope measures how long it takes for your page to become interactive. The time it takes a user to do an action on the website, such as picking a menu item or checking a box, is recorded by FID. Google seems to be working on a new responsiveness statistic that looks at latency across several user interactions rather than just the initial one and over a longer time period, noting that most online systems already score well in terms of FID. This is a perfect example of how CWV is more of a moving target than a fixed answer.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
This metric measures how much your page elements shift around while loading. You want your CLS to be under 0.1. In other words, how the page’s elements shift about the viewport as the page renders. Poor CLS might be caused by images or objects like ads or iframes that don’t have the right proportions, which can be frustrating for your users. Since CLS is primarily concerned with the significance of the change and its impact on the surrounding content, it is not measured in seconds like the other CWV indicators.
These metrics are important because they help gauge a website’s user experience. A website that loads quickly and has little layout shift will be more enjoyable to use than a website that takes a long time to load and has a lot of layout shifts.
Why Should I Care about Core Web Vitals for my Website
As a website owner, you should be mindful of Core Web Vitals because they are a key part of delivering a great user experience on your site. They are important because they give you an idea of how your site is performing from a user perspective.
If your site has poor Core Web Vitals, it could be affecting your traffic and conversion rates. Google uses these metrics as a ranking factor in their search algorithm, so it is important to make sure your site is optimized for them.
You can check your site’s Core Web Vitals using Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool. Simply enter your URL, and Google will give you a report on your metrics. From there, you can start making changes to improve your scores.
What Can I Do to Improve My Website’s CWV
Some common ways to improve your Core Web Vitals include:
- Reducing the size of your images
- Minimizing your reliance on JavaScript
- Lazy loading of your content
- Improving your server response time
- Checking your cached content
- Removing animations
- Switching your hosting provider
These are just a few of the many things you can do to improve your Core Web Vitals. If you want to ensure your site delivers a great user experience, keep an eye on these metrics.
What Are the Benefits of Improving My Website’s CWV
When you improve your website’s customer web journey (CWJ), you can enjoy a number of benefits. This includes the following,
- Increased Customer Engagement: When you make it easier for customers to find what they’re looking for on your website, they’re more likely to stick around and engage with your brand. This can lead to more sales and more loyal customers.
- Improved SEO: Making your website more user-friendly can also help you attract more organic traffic from search engines. This is because search engines like Google reward websites that offer a great user experience.
- More Leads and Sales: Ultimately, the goal of improving your website’s CWJ is to increase leads and sales. When you make it easier for customers to find what they’re looking for, they’re more likely to buy from you. [Particularly important for our manufacturing web design clients.]
Looking For IT Staffing Services and Technology Solutions?
If you’re looking to improve your website’s performance, start by focusing on the customer web journey. Core Web Vitals are a key part of delivering a great user experience, so make sure your site is optimized for them. You can achieve this by engaging a reputable IT services company like The Provato Group.
When a client comes to The Provato Group, we assess their unique situation and provide guidance on how to get the best possible outcome. We have over 75 years of expertise in the IT industry, with 65 of that spent on advanced IT projects, architecture, and development. we focus on providing expert IT staffing and technology solutions for businesses of all sizes and in all industries. We are able to provide superior service to our customers since we don’t focus on the competition in any given market.
So, what are you waiting for? Start monitoring your Core Web Vitals today! Want to understand more? Reach out to one of our website architects to get insights into your site’s CWV and performance.
