Google has recommended that SEO practitioners prioritize Core Web Vitals metrics as part of their SEO practices, which measure things real users care about like page loading speed and stability.
Core Web Vitals offer more accurate performance metrics than previous performance measurements that relied solely on lab data, by using real user-centric information collected daily by CrUX and stored as public datasets within Data Studio.
PageSpeed Insights:
The PageSpeed Insights tool offers an effortless page speed analysis that gives recommendations to enhance website performance. In addition, this free analysis gives insights into which factors affect overall score – helping you understand which are working and which require attention.
Google uses Core Web Vitals metrics as part of their ranking criteria in search results to rank pages in their search engine. They include loading speed, interactivity and visual stability measurements designed to deliver an exceptional experience to users.
Core Web Vitals offer many short and long-term advantages beyond SEO rankings. Many websites adopting Core Web Vitals have achieved improved SEO rankings as well as other business advantages; Vodafone Italy in Italy improved LCP by 31% to achieve 8% more sales through server side rendering of critical HTML, resizing hero images, deferring non-critical resources, etc.
Google recently made public that they intend to incorporate Core Web Vitals (CWVs) into their search ranking algorithm and use them as qualifiers for Top Stories placement on mobile. Therefore, if you wish to experience better organic performance it’s vital that you prioritize enhancing CWVs.
Lighthouse from Google provides a free, open source assessment tool designed to assess your website’s overall performance and compliance with web best practices. It includes tests for accessibility, performance, progressive web apps and SEO best practices – but its primary goal is what Google calls Core Web Vitals.
Though having a high Lighthouse score doesn’t guarantee good SEO practices, following best practices in these areas could help your site rank better on Google. This includes creating high-quality original content with the proper use of meta tags and structured data; making sure pages load quickly on both desktop and mobile devices; as well as making sure all pages load quickly when viewing on mobile devices.
Lighthouse reports can use various performance metrics depending on which version of the tool is being used, with recent versions altering some weighting of metrics to reflect Core Web Vitals projects – for example LCP now accounts for more of an individual score than TTI (Total Blocking Time) did in earlier iterations of Lighthouse reports.
A high performance score indicates that your website is fast and responsive, which will entice visitors to stay longer on your page. Search engines also appreciate this optimization effort which gives your rankings a boost – but the true motivation to optimize is to ensure user happiness; more people you make happy equals more success in achieving business goals.
CrUX:
Core Web Vitals are search ranking signals designed to measure user experience metrics like load speed, interactivity and visual stability. First introduced for mobile searches in August 2021 and now fully implemented on desktop searches too – these new ranking factors require SEO professionals to understand how these new metrics function and their effects on website performance and user experience.
Gaining high scores across these metrics may not be easy and often requires complex optimization solutions to achieve, yet their rewards are considerable. Prioritizing them will allow users to interact more freely with your site while improving your search rankings as a result.
Note that all Core Web Vitals metrics are collected through field data from real users who test your website with these tools, so some type of Real User Monitoring (RUM) solution must be in place to gather and measure this field data. Google offers multiple RUM solutions; select one which best meets the needs of your business.
Once your tools are in place, launch your PSI and CrUX reports. The former provides an in-depth evaluation of your site’s performance with its PageSpeed score while CrUX presents Lab data plus opportunities and diagnostics.
Google Search Console:
When it comes to search engine optimization, Google still favors pages with high-quality content that aligns with search intent over those with poor page experience, making Core Web Vitals such an integral component.
Although relatively new, performance metrics are rapidly becoming a mainstream feature on the Internet. They provide a clear and measurable standard to assess website quality performance; helping SEOs optimize websites more effectively and efficiently.
Example metrics to measure website performance include LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) and FID (First Input Delay). Both measures gauge how long it takes for your browser to respond to a first input from users.
Good news is that 80% of pages that pass Core Web Vitals also pass desktop and mobile usage metrics. These measurements can easily be verified using real-user monitoring tools such as PageSpeed Insights and Lighthouse or through Google Search Console.
Education of stakeholders on the significance of adopting standards is of utmost importance, and can be done by emphasizing their correlation between Core Web Vitals and business metrics. By showing that investing in improving performance metrics will have positive results for users, businesses can secure buy-in from stakeholders while simultaneously increasing their chances of ranking for competitive keywords by optimizing for these standardized criteria.
