A study has recently shown that a small percentage of websites pass all the core web vitals tests. To be precise, less than a meager 4% of websites. So, what are core web vitals?
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What Are Core Web Vitals?
Core web vitals refers to the specific criteria that Google includes to assess a page’s user interface experience. It is predicted that these factors will eventually become a crucial part of its ranking algorithm.
The three essential criteria with which you can assess whether you will pass this assessment or not are:
- Cumulative Layout Shift (Visual Stability)
- First Input Delay (Responsiveness)
- Largest Contentful Paint (Performance)
See also: Google Publishes SEO Guide To HTTP Status Codes And DNS Errors
Largest Contentful Paint (Performance)
LCP is a measure that indicates the speed with which the main content of the page loads and shows on the screen for the user to view. To provide the users with a “good experience,” the LCP of the website should be 2.5 seconds or less than that.
More than 2.5 seconds require additional improvement, while 4 seconds and above are considered bad. A good indicator of a healthy LCP is the 75th percentile of the page loads, including both smartphone and desktop.
The elements that are a part of the assessment of a Largest Contentful Paint are:
- <img>
- <img> within <svg>
- <video>
- Background image loaded through URL
- Block level
First Input Delay (Responsiveness)
It is a metric used to assess the duration in which the webpage responds to the interaction by the user. For example, you click on the website, and the time is taken for the website to respond to that click. When you click a sublink within the webpage, the time taken by the page to lead you to it is what we refer to as First Input Delay.
A fast response equates to is less than 100 milliseconds. Above 100 milliseconds comes under the bracket of “needs improvement.”
Cumulative Layout Shift (Visual Stability)
Say you’re visiting a website and you face unusual interruption in between. It hinders your otherwise smooth experience on the website. The factor measures how stable the visuals are on the website. An apt CLS is below 0.1.
Related: The Shift In CLS Score For Your Google Search Console
Why It Is Implemented?
These measures have been created to heighten the quality of interactivity and experience provided to users all across. The results have shown that most sites offer poor ratings in pooled results instead of individual ones.
Performance and Visual Stability, to be specific, are the areas they lack in, while most websites (99% desktop, 89% mobile) meet the responsiveness criteria..
How To Improve These Vitals For Your Web Page?
The answer is to compress significant elements from the website to reduce the risk of unexpected shifts or more time to load, faster loading of third-party scripts, follow the security protocol, make the website mobile-friendly, specify image dimensions, and speed up the response.
However, carrying out such changes might not guarantee success unless the quality of the content is high that enables the users to re-visit the website.
Even if one does not pass the test, they still stand a chance to be ranked. The ones that pass it get more room to improve the content quality as the user experience already satisfies Google’s criteria.