- By: PIXELDUST
- Date: June 26, 2024
- Category: Uncategorized
- Reading 8:12 pm
Understanding Core Web Vitals – Pixeldust Studios – Blog
what are core web vitals
Understanding what are Core Web Vitals is the first step in optimizing your website experience. Core Web Vitals are Google’s way of measuring a website’s performance based on loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability. These metrics are like a report card for your site’s user-friendliness, and they play a significant role in how Google ranks your site. In short, better Core Web Vitals mean better SEO, more traffic, and happier users. The key metrics include:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
- Interaction to Next Paint (INP)
Let’s break these down to see why they matter and how they affect your users.
Cumulative Layout Shift and How to improve it
How to Improve CLS
- Reserve Space for Ads: To prevent layout shifts, ensure your ad spaces are defined in your CSS or JavaScript.
- Specify Dimensions: Always set size attributes for images and videos to keep them from jumping around.
- Preload Fonts: Use the “font-display: swap” strategy to avoid invisible text while fonts load.
Interaction to next paint and how to improve it
Once the page loads and a user starts interacting with your site, it should feel smooth and instantaneous. If your site lags when users try to click, scroll, or type, it can be frustrating and might cause them to abandon your site. Imagine a user trying to add a product to their cart, but there’s a noticeable delay between their click and the page’s response. This lag can negatively perceive your site’s functionality and deter users from completing their actions.
INP measures your page’s responsiveness, tracking how quickly it displays new content after user interaction. Aim for an INP time of 200 milliseconds or less.
How to Improve INP
- Optimize JavaScript: Remove unnecessary code and break long tasks into smaller chunks.
- Limit Third-Party Scripts: Reduce their use or load them asynchronously to speed up response times.
Now that you have some understanding of the three metrics and what you can do to improve them, analyzing your Core Web Vitals is the next step in optimizing your site’s performance. Google provides several tools to help with this:
- Google PageSpeed Insights: This free tool analyzes your site’s performance on both mobile and desktop and offers suggestions for improvement.
- Core Web Vitals Report in Search Console: This report provides data on how real users experience your site and highlights common issues across pages.
- Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX): A public dataset that shows user interaction with various sites, offering valuable insights without direct diagnostics.
largest contentful paint and how to improve it
When users visit your website, they want to see the content quickly. If the most significant part of your page, like a large image or a headline, takes too long to load, visitors may leave before they even get a chance to interact with the rest of your site. This slow load time can lead to a high bounce rate and a low user satisfaction. LCP measures how long it takes for this largest piece of content on your page to load. Ideally, this should be 2.5 seconds or less. If your LCP is lagging, it might be due to slow servers, unoptimized images, or bulky scripts. Fixing these laggy load times help keep users engaged and improve their overall experience.
How to Improve LCP
- Compress Images: Use WebP formats instead of PNG or JPG and resize them to smaller dimensions.
- Use a CDN: Content Delivery Networks can distribute your site’s content globally, reducing load times.
- Optimize Code: Minimize and compress JavaScript and CSS to speed up page rendering.
How to run analytics
Now that you have some understanding of the three metrics and what you can do to improve them, analyzing your Core Web Vitals is the next step in optimizing your site’s performance. Google provides several tools to help with this:
- Google PageSpeed Insights: This free tool analyzes your site’s performance on both mobile and desktop and offers suggestions for improvement.
- Core Web Vitals Report in Search Console: This report provides data on how real users experience your site and highlights common issues across pages.
- Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX): A public dataset that shows user interaction with various sites, offering valuable insights without direct diagnostics.
how to implement these changes
conclusion
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