Core Web Vitals: How to improve them?

Google Core Web Vitals are critical to improving your search results. They help Google understand how well your website is performing. Besides, they also help identify the areas that need improvement. An SEO expert Singapore can help develop effective strategies to improve your website’s search rankings for relevant keywords. In addition, this blog will also share how to improve your core web vitals to improve your search rankings.

Google’s Core Web Vitals are speed metrics used to measure user experience. They help measure visual load with Largest Contentful Paint (LCP, interactivity with First Input Delay (FID), and visual stability with Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). You can check the Core Web Vitals report in Google Search Console to check whether your pages are categorised under poor or good URLs or if they need improvement.

Besides these factors, Google also considers a page’s mobile-friendliness and website security to determine its success in ranking well on SERPs. Simply put, optimising Core Web Vitals can help improve SEO and user experience.

How do Core Web Vitals work?

The following are three major metrics that make up Core Web Vitals. Let’s discuss them further.

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) — It measures the time it takes for large content elements, such as images and videos on your page, to load to appear before your audiences.
• First Input Delay (FID) — It helps measure your website’s responsiveness when your audiences interacted with them the first time.
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) — It helps measure the time it takes for your web pages to become visually stable. Not all elements on your site load simultaneously; some may move when the page is loaded. This metric evaluates whether any element on your screen can interrupt or prevent your audiences from consuming your content.
• First Contentful Paint (FCP) — This less-talked metric measures the time it takes for the browser to provide the first piece of content, such as an image on your web page.

Tips to improve Core Web Vitals

The following tips can help improve your Core Web Vitals and your website’s SEO. Let’s discuss them further.

Add a Caching Plugin

A caching plugin helps store static HTML versions of your pages. It eliminates the need for them to load whenever your audiences access your website. As a result, it helps reduce the load on your server.

For instance, if you are a WordPress user, you may use W3 Total Cache — a free plugin to reduce page load time to improve its performance. It helps in caching pages, posts, database objects, CSS and JavaScript, etc. In addition, you can also check other plugin options.

Remove Render-Blocking Elements

These are static HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files needed to render a page on your website. These files contain scripts to prevent your users from viewing your content. They are usually created by third-party plugins and tools like Google Analytics.

You can eliminate these resources and remove unused CSS or scripts to prevent them from affecting your User Experience.

For this purpose, you can remove white spaces and unnecessary comments to minify your JavaScript or CSS. You can also combine the files to condense your JavaScript and CSS files. As a WordPress user, you may find the WP Rocket plugin helpful.

Deferring Loading of Javascript

It can help remove render-blocking elements and improve the FID score. Since it helps delay the loading of JavaScript, it improves your website’s loading speed. Simply put, instead of waiting for all JavaScript files to load, it helps load other content on the page when your audience visits your site.

Moreover, you can also configure your site’s settings to help critical CSS load faster. For this purpose, you can take the content from the main CSS file and inline them into your code. It will help it load faster and improve the UX. Cache plugins, such as WP Rocket, offer an ‘Optimise CSS Delivery’ feature that can help you in this regard.

Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

It is a network of servers globally used to store your content. It means that your site will deliver its content from the closest servers to your audiences. As a result, it helps speed up loading times.

A CDN can help speed up LCP for your users. As a WordPress user, you can use several third-party tools in this regard.

Optimise Your Images

Optimising and compressing your images can also help boost your LCP score. You can use various image compression tools to reduce the file size without compromising quality. In addition, you can optimise your images by ensuring appropriate size and dimension. When uploading images from the WordPress editor, the Content Management System (CMS) assigns dimensions for you.

You must define the dimensions if you use codes to add images manually. In this regard, remember that larger images mean bigger file sizes. Besides, by changing the codes, you can adjust the images and videos’ height and width size attributes on your website. When you right-click on the image from the front end and select ‘Inspect’, it will allow you to view the attributes. It will open up the ‘Developer Tools’ panel, where you can check whether proper sizes are assigned.

Add Lazy Loading

Lazy loading allows your images to load when your users reach that specific section instead of loading simultaneously with other elements. It can help improve your LCP and loading speed. Many WordPress plugins come with an in-built lazy loading feature.

Optimise fonts

Your website fonts can also affect its loading time. They need the browser to download and load the font family, including their various weight combinations. Hence, optimising your web fonts can help improve your website’s performance.

Upgrade Wordpress hosting

If your website is too slow to load, you need to consider upgrading your web hosting. For instance, upgrading to a dedicated server instead of shared hosting can help improve your LCP.

Your hosting provider plays a significant role in your site’s performance. It affects your page speed, security, etc. Therefore, if you have a large or complex website, you should not avoid this aspect. Besides, upgrading the hosting provider can help improve your website’s loading time.

Therefore, following all these tips can help improve your website’s SEO, performance, and overall search ranking. You can consult an SEO agency Singapore about developing strategies to improve the overall SEO of your website.