It’s 2024, and today’s online users expect a specific kind of experience in order to return to a website. With constant improvements in optimisation, it is essential for business owners to meet these expectations if they want to attract traffic and increase sales.
Your website’s performance isn’t just about loading speed or a snazzy design—it’s about delivering an exceptional user experience every single time. Core Web Vitals and Page Experience Optimisation have become buzzwords in digital marketing for a damn good reason: they directly impact how visitors interact with your website, and they play a pivotal role in SEO rankings. If your website isn’t meeting Google’s standards for these metrics, you could be missing out on valuable traffic and conversions.
But what exactly are Core Web Vitals, and why are they so important? Core Web Vitals consist of three key metrics—(LCP), (FID), and (CLS)—that together measure how quickly your site loads, how responsive it is, and how stable its content appears. When optimised correctly, these elements contribute to a seamless, enjoyable browsing experience that keeps users engaged and encourages return visits.
In this blog, we’ll dive into the fundamentals of Core Web Vitals, explore the importance of Page Experience optimisation, and provide actionable tips on how you can enhance your website’s performance. From understanding the metrics to implementing practical improvements, this guide will equip you with the knowledge to create a website that meets Google’s standards and exceeds user expectations.
Understanding Core Web Vitals
Core web vitals are a set of specific metrics introduced by Google to measure essential aspects of a website’s performance. These metrics are important because they directly impact both user experience and search engine rankings.
The Three Key Metrics of Core Web Vitals
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
LCP is a key metric created by Google to measure how long it takes for the largest visible element on a webpage to load. This is usually an image, a video, or a large block of text. This is critical because it directly impacts how quickly users see the webpage ready for interaction.
Why Is LCP Important?
LCP focuses on the most visible parts of the page that matter most to the users. If a user opens a website and it takes too long to load, they may think the website is unresponsive and move on to the next link, resulting in higher bounce rates and lower engagement.
Improving LCP ensures that the most crucial part of the page becomes available to users as soon as they open the website, creating a better user experience and increasing the chances that visitors will stay on the page.
What Affects My Website’s LCP?
Several factors can slow down the loading of the largest content element, including:
- Slow server response times, which delay the entire page load process. You can optimise this by ensuring your hosting provider uses a CDN (Content Delivery Network).
- CSS or JavaScript files that block the loading process – in other words excessive and unnecessary development code. We call this ‘code bloat’.
- Large images, videos, or content that are not optimised for web or compressed down to the size they’re being used for on site. For example, displaying an image that is uploaded at 2000 pixels in width, but only displaying it on the website at 500px wide.
So What Does A Good LCP Score Look Like? (Performance Benchmarks)
- Good LCP: 2.5 seconds or less
- Needs Improvement: Between 2.5 and 4.0 seconds
- Poor LCP: Over 4.0 seconds
First Input Delay (FID)
FID is another critical core web vitals metric that measures the time it takes for a webpage to respond after the user’s first interaction. This interaction involves clicking a link, tapping a button, or any other action that requires the page to respond. FID focuses on interactivity, assessing how quickly the page becomes ready to use after it starts loading.
Why Is FID Important?
This metric is crucial because it directly impacts the user’s experience with the webpage. Imagine that a user visits a website and clicks to the contact page to get business contact details, but the webpage doesn’t respond. Who wants to come back to such a website? People want quick and prompt responses.
A fast FID means that the page is responsive and interactive to user input. On the other hand, a website with a slow FID will feel sluggish, frustrating users.
What Affects A Website’s FID Metric?
Several factors can cause delays in response by the website:
- Large or inefficient JavaScript files can block the main thread. In layman’s terms, the animations or element reactions on the page are taking too long to complete.
- Third-party code such as ads or analytics tools can cause delays if they slow down the page load or block user interactions. The most common ads and analytics tools such as Meta and Google have pixels (short codes that plug in to a website to track conversions or website goals), and when implemented properly, should not affect the speed of the website. Check with your developer if you’re not sure!
- If the browser is busy performing long-running tasks, it cannot respond to user interactions promptly. This can include downloading or uploading in a different tab.
So, What Does A Good FID Score Look Like? (Performance Benchmarks)
- Good FID: Less than 100 milliseconds
- Needs Improvement: Between 100 and 300 milliseconds
- Poor FID: Over 300 milliseconds
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
Cumulative Layout Shift, or CLS, is a key core web vitals metric that measures a webpage’s visual stability by tracking unexpected layout shifts during the page load. The job of CLS is to measure how stable a website looks when it’s loading. It’s like keeping track of how much things move around on the page unexpectedly. Cumulative Layout Shift reduction is crucial for maintaining a seamless and predictable user interface.
Why Is CLS Important?
Imagine you’re reading an article online, and suddenly, the text jumps down because an image or ad loads above it. That’s annoying, right? CLS helps website owners find and fix these jumpy elements.
Maintaining a low CLS ensures that the page is visually stable and users can have a smoother and more predictable experience.
What Causes a High CLS Score? (i.e. What makes the Web Page Jumpy?)
- Unspecified Image Sizes: Images without set dimensions can cause other elements to shift when they load.
- Unexpected Ads or Videos: Ads or videos that appear without reserved space can push content around.
- Late-Arriving Content: Pop-ups or banners that show up after the page loads can disrupt the layout.
- Slow-Loading Fonts: Special or custom fonts used on the site that take time to load can change the size of text, causing unexpected shifts in the layout.
So, What Does A Good CLS Score Look Like? (Performance Benchmarks)
- Good CLS: 0.1 or less
- Needs Improvement: Between 0.1 and 0.25
- Poor CLS: Greater than 0.25
Page Experience Optimisation
Page experience optimisation is the broader process of enhancing and improving a webpage to provide a pleasant experience for website visitors.
Page Experience Optimisation focuses on:
- Mobile-Friendliness and Safe Browsing: Ensuring your site works well on phones and keeps users safe from harmful content.
- Fast Loading and Easy Navigation: Make sure pages load quickly, and visitors can find what they need without the hassle.
- Attractive Design: Creating a visually appealing experience across all devices.
Trust AdVisible, the top digital marketing agency in Sydney, to enhance your website’s user experience to ensure the best return on investment for your marketing spend!
Page experience goes beyond core web vitals to improve a user’s experience. When a website is fast and easy to navigate, it will lead to increased engagement, better conversion rates, and stronger search engine rankings.
In short, more visitors stay on your site, happier users will explore more content, and more visitors will become customers, creating better results for your business overall!
Core Web Vitals Improvement Strategies
Page Speed Optimisation
People are more likely to revisit websites that are fast, so enhancing the page’s speed is one of the core areas of improving user experience. Here are some strategies to achieve page speed optimisation:
- Optimise Images: Large images take time to load and slow down a webpage’s load time. It is advised to compress images down to the size you need them in order to reduce their impact on loading speed. Reformatting images to an optimised file type like WebP offers faster loading with better quality for websites.
- Minimise Server Response Times: A slow server response can severely impact the Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) score. Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix to identify bottlenecks. Additionally, finding a website hosting service that includes a Content Delivery Network (CDN) can ensure that your website content is delivered quickly across the globe for all users.
- Leverage Browser Caching: A browser’s cache stores assets on the user’s device, so they don’t need to be reloaded every time the user visits your site. This reduces server load and speeds up the site for returning visitors.
- Utilise Lazy Loading: Lazy loading ensures that only elements visible in the viewport or “above the fold” are loaded first. As the user scrolls down the page, the rest of the images and elements can load, reducing the initial loading time by quite a lot!
Mobile-First Indexing Strategies
Nowadays, people use mobile phones more than traditional desktops or laptops. For this reason, your website must be fully functional and fast on mobile devices. It will not only improve user experience but also boost your search rankings through effective mobile-first indexing strategies.
- Responsive Design: Use responsive designs that can adjust smoothly across different screen sizes and devices. If your website is not optimised for mobile devices, a user may have to zoom or scroll horizontally, which can degrade the experience and reduce user engagement.
- Minimise Mobile Load Times: Compress CSS, JavaScript, and HTML files to improve load times. Reduce the number of HTTP requests to enhance page speed.
- Test Your Mobile Site: Regularly test your site’s mobile experience to ensure it is working fine. Tools like Google’s mobile-friendly test can identify areas where the mobile user experience may be lagging and make necessary adjustments.
Improving User Experience and Core Web Vitals Metrics
To ensure a seamless user experience on your website, it is crucial to address the ways to improve core web vitals, which include First Input Delay (FID) and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). Focusing on user experience metrics can significantly enhance the overall functionality and appeal of your website.
How To Improve FID
- Optimise JavaScript: Reduce the size and complexity of your JavaScript files by minimising, compressing, and deleting non-essential codes. This ensures the browser is not overloaded during the initial loading of the webpage.
- Break Up Long Tasks: Break up long tasks into smaller chunks so they don’t block the main thread for extended periods. This allows the browser to process user inputs first and then take up other tasks.
- Reduce Third-Party Scripts: Limit the usage of third-party scripts. If you need to add them, optimise them so they do not slow down the loading process or block interactions.
- Use Web Workers: Offload heavy JS tasks to web workers, which run in the background, allowing the main thread to stay free for user interactions.
How To Reduce CLS
- Always Include Size Attributes For Images And Videos: Define a fixed width and height for images, videos, and other media elements in your HTML or CSS. This ensures that the browser allocates the correct amount of space to these elements even before they load.
- Preallocate Space For Ads And Embedded Content: Reserve a static place for ads and embedded content so they don’t shift other content while loading.
- Use CSS For Animations And Transitions: Ensure animations and transitions don’t cause layout shifts by implementing them carefully.
- Optimise Fonts Loading: Implement font-display settings to prevent layout shifts caused by late-loading web fonts. This ensures that text remains visible to the user until the custom fonts are fully loaded.
- Avoid Injecting Content Above Existing Content: When adding content such as banners or notifications, insert it in a way that does not disturb the existing content. Add it at the bottom or reserve space in advance.
We know this might sound like a bit of mumbo-jumbo to most people, so if you’re unsure how to optimise your code, animations or images and improve your website’s FID and CLS scores, get in touch with AdVisible’s website development team.
The Importance Of Monitoring Core Web Vitals for SEO and Marketing
With the increasing number of websites, staying competitive and improving your search engine rankings is essential. Regularly monitor and improve core web vitals using tools such as Google Search Console, PageSpeed Insights, and Lighthouse to track your website’s performance on these metrics.
Wrapping Up
In today’s competitive digital landscape, ensuring your website provides an optimal user experience is more important than ever. Core Web Vitals are not just technical metrics; they are crucial indicators of how users perceive your site.
By focusing on Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), you can significantly enhance your website’s performance, improve user satisfaction, and boost your search engine rankings.
Remember, a fast, responsive, and stable website is key to retaining visitors and driving engagement. Regularly monitor these metrics and implement the optimisation strategies discussed to stay ahead in the digital game.
Ready to take your website to the next level?
Contact AdVisible for a comprehensive website audit and personalised optimisation plan. Our team of experts is here to help you enhance your site’s performance, improve user experience, and achieve better search engine rankings. Don’t let poor web performance hold you back – let’s make your website faster, more responsive, and visually stable. Reach out now and see the difference we can make together!
