In 2021, we already know enough about the importance of search engine’s role in digital marketing. As search engine plays a vital part in attracting potential customers, brands worldwide focus on optimizing their websites for search engines, more than ever.
However, convincing the search engines like Google and getting ranked on top of the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) is not a cakewalk. It needs consistent efforts from the brand's side.
Yes, Google keeps changing its metrics periodically to improve the overall internet experience of the users. Thus, businesses need to keep an eye on the current SEO trends and implement them on their websites. Else, they will stay behind and almost get lost among their competitors.
Core web vitals is a hot topic in the SEO community after Google announced page experience as a prime ranking factor from June 2021. Google does not want to send its users to mediocre websites. It believes in providing a better internet experience for all its users.
Thus, you have to improve your core web vitals score to get ranked on top of Google SERPs, and you have to take action immediately, else your search rankings will start to tumble.
Now, how to improve your core web vitals? But, before moving on to improving it, let us understand core web vitals first.
What are Core Web Vitals?
Core web vitals are a set of metrics to measure the user experience on a website. The metrics used here in website evaluation are loading time, page interactivity, and visual stability. To be precise, it means how fast your website loads, how responsive and interactive the user feels matter the most for Google.
In short, Google says the website owners to optimize the quality of the user experience to scale long-term success on the web. That way, you will not only rank better on Google SERP, but your users will find your website impressive and explore it for a longer time. That will improve your conversions.
Now, let us learn about those three metrics that evaluate if your page provides a better user experience in detail:
1) Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
It measures the time takes for your webpage to load completely. In other words, every page element, including images, videos, animation, text, etc should get loaded within a few seconds.
2) Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
It evaluates the stability of the page elements once the webpage is loaded. For instance, if the page elements cause confusing movements while the page is still loading, it will interrupt the users from consuming the content. A higher CLS indicates your page has poor visual stability.
3) First Input Delay (FID)
It determines the interactivity of your webpage. Interactivity means how responsive your web pages are when users encounter them for the first time. The user can perform any action like navigating to other pages, clicking on several options; the webpage should provide better results.
How to Improve Your Core Web Vitals Score
The ultimate goal of optimizing your website for core web vitals metrics is to improve the user experience. With that in mind, let us move on to learn some of the best ways to improve your core web vitals score.
1) Implement Lazy Loading
If your website has multiple images, animations, or videos, you will benefit from lazy loading significantly. The idea here is to load images or iframes only if users want to see them. Yes, lazy loading encourages loading images at the exact moment when users scroll down through the page.
Thus, users need not wait for all the elements on the page to load to use the webpage. That way, you can improve both your LCP and FID effectively. We suggest lazy loading if your website has lots of visuals.
Furthermore, you can enjoy the following benefits by incorporating lazy loading:
- ● Improved website performance.
- ● Limited bandwidth usage.
- ● Improved user-interactivity.
- ● Enhanced SEO.
2) Reduce JavaScript(JS) Execution
It is highly advisable to optimize your JS execution, especially if you have a poor FID score. That way, the time between your browser execution JS code and page is reduced. Plus, it is equally crucial to use less memory because whenever your site’s code requests the browser, it holds a new memory that stops the JavaScript and might slow down the page.
One method to reduce the JavaScript(JS) execution is to free memory space. You can achieve that in two ways:
- Remove unwanted third-party JavaScript or unused components of .js libraries. Segregate components that you want in your library and remove unwanted snippets that no longer serve the purpose.
- Defer or Async tags and determine the necessary JavaScript snippets and other snippets that can be deferred later in the loading process. The logic behind it is deferred scripts never block the page. Thus, the browser will continue to process the HTML to build DOM.
However, these are not the only ways to optimize your JavaScript. There are many other ways that you can use to optimize your JavaScript and make your website load faster.
3) Leverage Content Distribution Network(CDN)
A content distribution network is a highly distributed platform of servers that helps in minimizing latency in loading web page content. It works by reducing the physical distance between the server and the user. Thus, users worldwide can access the content without slow loading times.
Opt for the CDN service provider that has servers in multiple locations. So the content delivery to end-users becomes smooth and seamless. Stackpath, NitroPack, KeyCDN, and Cloudflare are some of the popular CDNs you can utilize for your website.
Moreover, make sure your CDN serves your static assets to make the page loading faster. Plus, cache the assets reached on the client-side in your browser to improve the second time load. Additionally, you can also cache your dynamic pages in your CDN. Finally, you need to set the correct TTL value by observing your application behavior.
4) Mobile Optimization
With billions of users prefer accessing the internet through their smartphones, it’s high time you need to optimize your website for mobile if you haven’t yet.
As a business, you have to evolve with the current market trends and customer’s needs; else you will get lost among your competitors. However, optimizing your website for mobile has become effortless with various mobile site builders available in the market today. They help you create a mobile site that works excellent on every device.
Make sure your mobile site loads faster. Sometimes, heavy site design causes code bloat that often leads to slow page loading. That again will affect your core web vitals score.
Start working on minifying codes, reducing redirects, and using gzip compression. Finally, double-check your site to see if these corrections have improved your mobile website speed.
5) Do Server Side Render (SSR) for Your Page Components
Server-side rendering (SSR) improves the loading performance of your website. It displays the web page on the server rather than rendering it in the browser.
Your page speed will improve drastically by serving renderable HTML. Yes, the browser can paint immediately before loading, parsing, or executing any of your JavaScript. So, doing SSR will bring a definite impact on mobile websites. As we all know, mobile websites take quite a long time to load than desktop sites, probably due to network problems.
SSR is highly advisable for your page components that appear above the fold. And, for the components that appear below the fold, you can render them from the client-side. That way, you can speed up the loading process without hampering the user experience.
One can perform SSR using various libraries such as React, Vue, and Angular. Google itself recommends performing SSR as it helps in achieving better SEO values.
6) Optimize API Requests and Responses
API responses and requests come from the client side. They are not necessary and are only packed with data that you may not need it. Such API responses often impact page loading directly and affect your core web vitals score.
You can improve your website efficiency drastically by simplifying these responses. There are many third-party solutions that you can leverage to optimize API response. Most of them use code-based methods. For instance, pagination, filtering, and ranges are code-based solutions that you can leverage to fix this particular issue.
7) Set the Attributes Size Precisely
On your website, you may have several attributes that enhance its appearance and attracts visitors. But that might hurt your CLS score drastically. You can rectify such problems by following the below options:
- (i) Choose Appropriate Fonts: Using several fonts on a single page causes a cumulative layout shift. Thus, you will end up hurting your CLS score. Always use the minimum possible fonts and sizes. It is preferable to have only two fonts on a webpage, one bold type for headlines and a high readability font for the other content.
- (ii) Set Media Sizes: Always add the size attributes in the HTML tag for images and videos. Thus the user’s browser will identify the exact amount of space the file will reserve while loading the page.
- (iii) Reserve Space for Ads: You may need to show ads on your website via third-party JavaScript through networks like Google AdSense and more. In that case, always reserve a default block that loads first. Thus, ads won’t cause any layout shifts when loaded off-screen. Also, style the element before the ad tag library even starts loading.
Wrapping Up
Digital marketing is never complete without search engines. When most customers rely on search engines to find products and services, businesses have to convince the search engine algorithms to get noticed.
Google-like giant updates its ranking metrics periodically to improve the user experience on the internet. Thus, brands need to keep an eye on the current SEO needs and optimize their website relentlessly.
As Google announced core web vitals as a prime ranking factor recently, almost all brands have started working towards it already. You can also get on the bandwagon by incorporating core web vitals into your SEO strategy.
You can use the above-said practices to improve your core web vitals score. Always make sure to compare your site’s results before and after fixing the errors. However, if you feel overwhelmed to do it all by yourself, you can hire SEO experts and get your job done.
Are you looking for highly skilled SEO experts who can improve your core web vitals score? At Cypherox Technologies, we have a dedicated SEO team who can improvise your SEO strategies and help you rank on top of the SERP.
You can rely on our SEO experts to improve your core web vitals score or any other new metrics that will come in the future, for that matter. The sooner you start implementing core web vitals into your SEO strategy, the better you gain a competitive edge over other websites.
