Google has updated its Core Web Vitals metrics, which will change the way it assesses the likely user experience when a visitor arrives at and interact with a website. What does this means for your business website?
Google is very hot on website user experience and if your website is not up to scratch it can impact your website rankings. Google has recently announced it is making a big change to how it measures the Core Web Vitals of websites, so if you’re doing your own website management, it is certainly something you should be aware of. If this is all new news to you, let’s recap what Core Web Vitals are and why they are important. Then we will have a look at what’s changing.
This is going to get a bit technical, but if you are managing your website yourself (rather than using an agency) you need to be aware of the change.
Core Web Vitals are three metrics Google uses to assess some aspects of the experience users get when they arrive at your website. Essentially, they measure the load speed of the website and its responsiveness to user interaction. Currently, these metrics are:
- LCP (largest contentful paint): Time taken to render the largest visible content element;
- FID (first input delay): Time for the browser to respond to the first user interaction with the page;
- CLS (cumulative layout shift): The total sum of layout rearrangements that occur on the page as the user interacts with the page.
If you log into Google Search Console (which you should be doing on a regular basis if you manage your own website), you will see a message saying FID will be replaced by INP in March 2024. So what is INP?
- INP: (interaction to next paint): The time it takes for the website to respond to every user interaction with the page.
So, this change means Google will be measuring all the website responses to user interactions rather than just the first user interaction.
It’s important to understand that this is just Google changing its assessment of your website; your website will still be performing the same both before and after the change. However, if Google is changing how it measures things, it may change how Google views your website, which in turn could change how it ranks your website in search results. So, if you see a change in rankings in March, this may be the cause.
So, what should you do, apart from keep an eye on your keyword rankings? Best practice for user experience holds true – you want a website that loads quickly and has no lag with user interactions. These are ranking factors, meaning the faster your website, the better it will rank. However, remember Google is comparing your website to competitor websites, so it doesn’t have to be the fastest on the planet, you just need to ensure your site is at least as fast as the competition.
