For a business to be successful, it must invest its time and efforts in acquiring new customers. Businesses, big and small and in various industries, have as their main objective to gain positive notoriety and build their visibility and awareness with their target markets – or the people who are most likely to be interested in their products or services.

Business owners look to online marketing as the primary tool to generate new customer pools and pique the interest of consumers so they will visit their website. The prime selling real estate for a business is its website – where companies present the selling points of their brand and Unique Selling Proposition to online visitors.  The website is the face of a business and where businesses interact with visitors and attempt to persuade users to purchase their wares.

But in order to bring visitors to their website, business owners must have their company listings display favorably – or high – on search engines. Success for a business depends heavily on showing up at or near the top of Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS).

Google, the most powerful search engine in the world, is where businesses succeed or fail based on where online consumers find their listing. It is incumbent upon your company to optimize your website for SEO so people can find your business online quickly and easily!

Introducing Google’s Core Web Vitals

Google – just this summer – implemented three new search engine metrics related to website speed and have added these to the list of search result ranking factors.  These Core Web Vitals were added to the Page Experience ranking factor this past June.

These three factors that make up the Core Web Vitals are:

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) – This measures how fast the largest piece of content loads on your website – typically at the top of the web page. In most cases, this could be an image, a video, or a block of text. In essence, LCP is testing how fast visitors can view a meaningful piece of content on your website.

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) – This measures how long it takes for various elements on your website to settle into place. Basically, the CLS measures the visual stability on your website. For example, when a user visits your site and clicks on a link, does the site’s layout suddenly shift? The sudden change in a website’s structure can be jarring and will make for a poor user experience.

First Input Delay (FID) – This measures the time elapsing between a visitor initially interacting with your website, such as clicking on a link or a drop-down menu, and the website responding. Users expect instantaneous reaction once they click on an actionable piece of content on your site.

These Core Web Vitals (CWV) have become a part of Google’s Search Algorithm. They are also a Google ranking factor.  You can now expect these metrics to affect your company’s search results on Google.

These Core Web Vitals seek to improve the three critical areas of loading, interactivity and visual stability for users on websites.

Breakdown of Each Core Web Vital Metric

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

The LCP evaluates how well your website uploads the largest pieces of content so it is visible to a user. The LCP is determined on the basis of the page loading status. Most often, the largest element is loaded at the end.

How long is it recommended to take for the largest content to display on your site after a user has clicked your website link on a search engine page?  According to Google’s standards, a good speed is under 2.5 seconds.

A study discovered that a two-second delay decreases user satisfaction and lessens the chances of a user returning to that site. What’s more, a two-to-four second delay could cause traffic drops and negatively impact a website’s ranking on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

As noted earlier, the CLS gauges visual stability on a website.  For example, when a user clicks on a link or an image, does the site’s layout suddenly shift?  This abrupt change interrupts the user experience and likely will result in the visitor leaving your site.

According to Google, the lower your CLS score is, the more stable your website. A good CLS score is under 0.1.

First Input Delay (FID)

When a user arrives at your website, your goal is to have that visitor be able to click on any actionable content, and have your site immediately respond. The FID measures how responsive a browser is after the user interacts with the site.

If your site is up-to-date with integrating Core Web Vitals into your SEO metrics, it should have a FID of less than 100 milliseconds. This means your site reacts quickly to user interaction. Anything longer than 100 milliseconds and your visitor will probably experience lagging and become frustrated and likely leave the site.

Keep in mind that time-starved users who arrive at your website won’t exhibit much patience with a slow-to-respond site. Any delays are inviting that all-important potential new customer to depart your site and opt for a competitor’s website.

An example of this is found in a study – where users interacted with a nested menu, the satisfaction among users decreased when a site took just three seconds to respond.

A six-second delay left users commenting that the site was too slow.

Why Google Added Core Web Vitals to Search Engine Rankings

These Core Web Vitals, or Page Experience Update, stems from Google’s value for creating a seamless and positive user journey on the Web.  This move demonstrates the ongoing and increased point of emphasis for Google on having user-centered websites.  The objective of these Core Web Vitals is to reduce the instances of interruptions during a user’s time on a site.

These interruptions occur as a result of various dysfunctions, and they include:

1. Slow website speed
2. Broken buttons
3. Poor design

User experience has always been an essential factor in Google’s ranking algorithm.  It will play an even larger role in website optimization. The clear message from Google to web developers, marketers and business owners is to prioritize how users interact with your website. The driving force for these Core Web Vitals is to create sites that promote user-friendliness, ease of navigating the website, clarity, accessibility, and, ultimately, user satisfaction.

Included in these indicators for a healthy website are mobile friendliness and functional buttons that facilitate a pleasant user experience on a site. When websites are compliant in these important areas – including the Core Web Vitals – they will become more optimized, ensuring much higher search engine rankings with greater access to potential new customers!

Lemon Head Design Has Its Clients Set Up for Success with Core Web Vitals!

Lemond Head Design clients are well positioned for utilizing these recently implemented Google Core Web Vitals.  We migrated our clients onto a new server in January of this year for this very reason. The new server that our clients have been transferred to is designed to optimize these Core Web Vitals!

Let Lemon Head Design Help Your Business Succeed Online

Lemon Head Design is a web services agency that has a proven track record of helping businesses be successful with well-designed, money-making websites. Our award-winning designers produce websites with the user in mind so businesses can more easily connect with potential customers.

Among the online services we provide are Web development, Web maintenance, graphic design, marketing services, and Chatbot with Live Chat and SMS.

With Lemon Head Design, we will create a professional, eye-catching website that attracts the people you want as customers, all while contributing to your bottom line!

For more than a dozen years, Lemon Head Design has been the premier source for website design in Utah. We have helped hundreds of our clients succeed online.  Why shouldn’t our next client be you?