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Google has announced its latest UX ranking factor that is set to be fully rolled out in 2021. This new update has the potential to change the face of SEO and how webpages will be ranked henceforth. The latest algorithm will add more metrics to its existing parameters. User experience will be a deciding factor with this new update.

Google will measure all these new parameters based on Core Web Vitals. With these latest metrics under its sleeve, Google aims to improve the online experience for web users. The Core Web Vitals are a set of metrics which are – LCP, FID, CLS.

What are Core Web Vitals?

Google’s Core Web Vitals are a set of user-centric metrics that aims to improve the page experience of users. These metrics will measure factors like its security, stability and interactivity that forms the basis of the online experience of all users. Read further to know more about the Core Web Vitals.

• LCP (Largest Contentful Paint):

With JavaScript being increasingly incorporated in page design, webpages are becoming more complex. This change has an impact on the page loading speed. To be precise, LCP measures the time your page takes to load the largest element of your site to load on your screen. The largest element may be an image, or a video, or a text. LCP measures the loading time of that element.

• FID (First Input Delay):

This Core Vital Metric examines how interactive your site is. Let’s say you click on a button or a hyperlink and nothing happens. The browser speed is slow, or the JavaScript of your site is too complex to execute smoothly. FID measure the time it takes the browser to respond to the first user-driven event on your webpage.

• CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift):

Has it ever happened to you that you clicked on the wrong button mistakenly when you were going for some other button? That is due to lack of stability in the webpage and it affects user experience. CLS measures the percentage of the screen that shifts in response to user interaction.

Relationship with Page Experience Update

The latest UX ranking algorithm of Google will work in tandem with its page experience update. These are the latest addition to Google’s relentless efforts towards the improvement of the online experience for users. In addition to the core web vitals, Google has also introduced another set of parameters that will appraise the overall page experience of a user.

• HTTPS friendly
• Mobile-Optimized
• Use of Interstitials
• Page security

 

How is the Core Web Vitals Going to Impact Rankings?

Both the Core Web Vitals and the Page Experience factors will affect the rankings of your webpage. According to Google, these Core Web Vitals effectively quantifies the user-centric aspects of your page. Whether users have a smooth experience on your page in terms of page speed, its interaction with users are all measured using CLS, LCP and FID. Using this web vitals report perfectly, a website owner or an SEO service provider company can optimize their site to fare better as per Google standards.

Different Ways to Improve Core Web Vitals Score

The Core Web Vitals report on your Search Console reflects how your page experience is doing for visitors and whether you need to go for further page optimization or not. Google recommends that website owners must work on the aspects that have been deemed poor by the Core Web Vitals report. There are multiple ways by which you or your digital marketing agency can optimize your page to fare better on the report.

• Image optimization: Large size images take up a lot of time to load onto the screen which is why optimizing images can improve LCP of your site.
• Speedier loading time: Complex JavaScript in page design often eats uploading time. That can be prevented by speeding up the server and optimizing CSS.
• Utilize browser and CDN Cache: Ensure that your static assets are served from CDN. For second time loads, utilize the browser cache for a speedy page loading experience.
• Set specific size attributes for images: CLS often happens when there are images without dimensions in CSS. This makes the elements unstable and they tend to jump around. Hence, specifying image dimensions in the CSS can prevent that.
• Compress your static assets using Brotli Compression: Compress your static assets using Brotli Compression as they give you the best compression ratio. This drastically improves your page load performance.
• Document size reduction: Reducing landing page size to less than 80KB improves the site loading speed. This also improves your Core Web Vitals.

Final Thoughts

Google is conscious of the new challenges that their latest update is going to pose for the webpage owners. Hence, they have provided plenty of windows to work on optimizations by announcing the update beforehand. If you diligently follow all the tips given above and implement it on your page, your page may show drastic improvement, not only in the Core Web Vitals report but also for overall traffic.