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Core Web Vitals Guide

Technical SEO Guide: Core Web Vitals Explained

•10 min read

Core Web Vitals have become crucial ranking factors in Google's algorithm. Understanding and optimizing these metrics can significantly improve your website's search performance and user experience.

What Are Core Web Vitals?

Core Web Vitals are a set of specific factors that Google considers important in a webpage's overall user experience. They are:

  • Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) - Measures loading performance. To provide a good user experience, LCP should occur within 2.5 seconds of when the page first starts loading.
  • First Input Delay (FID) - Measures interactivity. Pages should have an FID of 100 milliseconds or less.
  • Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) - Measures visual stability. Pages should maintain a CLS of 0.1 or less.

How to Measure Core Web Vitals

There are several tools available to measure Core Web Vitals:

  • Google Search Console
  • PageSpeed Insights
  • Chrome DevTools
  • Lighthouse
  • Chrome User Experience Report

Optimizing LCP (Largest Contentful Paint)

To improve your LCP score:

  • Optimize and compress images
  • Implement lazy loading
  • Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
  • Minimize render-blocking resources
  • Optimize server response time

Expert Tip

"Focus on optimizing your largest page elements first, as they have the biggest impact on LCP scores."

Improving FID (First Input Delay)

To enhance interactivity and reduce input delay:

  • Break up long tasks
  • Optimize JavaScript execution
  • Minimize main thread work
  • Keep request counts low and transfer sizes small

Minimizing CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift)

To prevent unwanted layout shifts:

  • Always include width and height attributes on images and videos
  • Reserve space for ads
  • Avoid inserting content above existing content
  • Use transform animations instead of animations of properties that trigger layout changes

Conclusion

Core Web Vitals are not just technical metrics – they're a reflection of your website's user experience. By focusing on these essential metrics and making the necessary optimizations, you can improve both your search rankings and user satisfaction.