As a WordPress developer, you probably know that Google’s algorithms are constantly evolving to improve user experience. However, one update that has been crucial for SEO and website performance is the introduction of Core Web Vitals.
But before you get overwhelmed by buzzwords, let’s break it down into bite-sized chunks that are both technically rich and practical for your WordPress projects.
In this guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know about Google Core Web Vitals, their importance, and how you can optimize them on your WordPress site. Plus, we’ll throw in real-life examples and situations that WordPress agencies can directly relate to.
Table of Contents
What Are Google Core Web Vitals?
Let’s start by defining what Google Core Web Vitals are. Google rolled out Core Web Vitals in 2020 as part of its ongoing mission to prioritize user experience in search rankings.
These metrics measure how users experience the loading performance, interactivity, and visual stability of a web page.
In short, Core Web Vitals focus on three main aspects of website performance:
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Measures loading performance. It’s the time it takes for the largest visible element (like an image or text block) to load on the page.
Imagine a dealership website where the hero image or car listings are the largest content block. If it takes more than 2.5 seconds for that image to load, users may bounce, affecting your SEO ranking.
First Input Delay (FID): Measures interactivity. Specifically, FID measures how long it takes for a page to become interactive when a user first clicks or taps.
Think of a user clicking on the ‘Contact Us’ button on a car dealership website. If the page takes more than 100 milliseconds to respond, the user may grow frustrated and abandon the site.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): Measures visual stability. CLS looks at how much the content shifts while loading. A page with high CLS can cause frustrating experiences, like clicking the wrong button because elements moved unexpectedly.
Let’s say a dealership website’s “Buy Now” button jumps around as images or ads load. It’s like reaching for a coffee cup only to have it move at the last second — annoying and disruptive!
Why Are Core Web Vitals Optimization Important for SEO?
In 2021, Google made a major shift in its ranking algorithms by incorporating Core Web Vitals as a direct ranking factor. This means that Core Web Vitals optimization is now a crucial component of your website’s SEO strategy.
These metrics focus on user experience (UX), and Google has clearly stated that user experience is one of the key factors in ranking websites higher in search results. If your site is slow, unstable, or unresponsive, it can negatively impact your SEO rankings, even if your content is top-notch.
1. Faster Websites Rank Higher
When users visit a website, they expect it to load quickly. Slow-loading pages are a major turn-off, and they significantly increase bounce rates — the percentage of visitors who leave a site after viewing only one page.
Websites with slow loading speeds typically suffer from poor LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) scores, which measure how long it takes for the largest visible element to load on a page. If LCP exceeds 2.5 seconds, users are more likely to leave before the page fully loads, and Google takes this as a signal that your site offers a poor user experience.
By optimizing your Core Web Vitals, particularly LCP, you ensure your site loads quickly, which keeps users engaged and reduces bounce rates. Faster websites are favored by Google and are more likely to rank higher in search results, boosting your Google Core Web Vitals SEO.
2. Better User Experience Equals Better SEO
The ultimate goal of Google Core Web Vitals is to improve user experience. As a WordPress developer, you know that user experience (UX) plays a huge role in how visitors perceive and interact with your site.
A site that loads quickly, responds promptly to user interactions and doesn’t shift elements around unexpectedly will naturally keep users happy. Google’s algorithm rewards sites that provide these positive experiences with better rankings.
By optimizing FID, you reduce the time it takes for your WordPress site to become interactive, leading to an improved user experience. Sites with low FID scores are likely to see increased user engagement, which directly correlates with better SEO rankings.
3. Visual Stability Enhances User Trust
Imagine a visitor lands on your website and sees an image gallery or advertisement loading, only for the layout to shift unexpectedly, pushing the text or buttons around. This happens when the Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) score is high.
A high CLS score indicates a poor visual experience where elements jump around while the page loads, causing users to accidentally click the wrong thing or become confused by the shifting content. This can lead to frustration, a poor user experience, and increased bounce rates.
By focusing on Core Web Vitals optimization to reduce CLS, you can ensure that your site’s layout remains stable and intuitive as it loads.
This makes your website more predictable and easy to navigate, improving both user trust and SEO performance. Users are more likely to stay on a site that provides a seamless and predictable experience, resulting in longer session durations and ultimately better rankings in Google search results.
4. Lower Bounce Rates and Higher Conversions
The impact of Core Web Vitals on SEO extends beyond just rankings. Optimizing these metrics has a direct effect on bounce rates, which is a crucial metric for SEO. When your website loads quickly, is interactive and maintains visual stability, visitors are more likely to stick around and engage with your content.
This leads to lower bounce rates and better conversions, whether that’s making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or clicking on multiple pages.
For example, if an automotive dealership website loads slowly or has interactivity issues, potential customers are likely to leave before they even see the car inventory or fill out a contact form.
However, when the website performs well in Core Web Vitals, customers are more likely to explore the offerings and complete a transaction or inquiry, which can lead to higher conversion rates. More conversions signal to Google that the site is providing a quality user experience, which can further improve SEO rankings.
How to Test Google Core Web Vitals
Before diving into Google core web vitals optimization, you need to understand your starting point- how to test Google core web vitals.
Here are some tools you can use to test your Core Web Vitals:
Google Search Console: If you haven’t already, set up Google Search Console. In the “Core Web Vitals” report, you’ll see how your website is performing for LCP, FID, and CLS. This is where Google directly informs you whether your site meets the performance thresholds.
Pro Tip: Google Search Console divides performance into Good, Needs Improvement, and Poor categories. Target the ‘Poor’ category first.
Google PageSpeed Insights: This tool not only provides a Core Web Vitals score but also gives specific recommendations to optimize your site.
Lighthouse: Integrated into Chrome DevTools, Lighthouse runs performance audits on your website, providing detailed reports on your Core Web Vitals.
Web Vitals Extension: A handy Chrome extension that shows real-time Core Web Vitals metrics as you browse your site.
How to Improve Google Core Web Vitals in WordPress
Now that you’ve tested your site and found that you need to work on them, this is what you need to know about improving the core web vitals.
How to Improve Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) Core Web Vitals
Improving the Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) is critical for enhancing your site’s performance, as it directly impacts how quickly the largest element on your page (such as an image or text block) loads.
The faster LCP is, the better the user experience, and the better your SEO rankings. Here are several methods to optimize LCP and get your site performing at its best.
1. Improve Server Response Time
A slow server can severely impact LCP, as it delays the time it takes for the browser to start loading the largest content element. If your server is slow to respond, users may see a blank screen or a partially loaded page for a long time.
Solution: Consider switching to a faster hosting solution that is optimized for WordPress performance, such as managed WordPress hosting by InstaWP.
Tip: Using a Content Delivery Network (CDN) like Cloudflare or KeyCDN can reduce latency by caching static resources and serving them from a server geographically closer to the user, improving LCP times significantly.
2. Optimize Images
Images are often the largest content element on a page, and they can drastically slow down the LCP if not optimized properly. Compressing and serving images in next-gen formats like WebP can reduce the size without compromising quality.
Solution: Convert images to formats such as WebP or AVIF, which offer better compression and faster loading times compared to JPEG or PNG.
Tip: You can use image compressors to automatically optimize images as you upload them. These plugins will compress images, convert them to WebP, and even handle lazy loading for you, all without much hassle.
Must Read: How to Optimize Images in WordPress Websites
3. Use Lazy Loading
Lazy loading is a technique where images, videos, and other media are only loaded when they come into view as the user scrolls down the page. This prevents the browser from loading all resources at once, improving LCP and overall page load times.
Solution: Implement lazy loading for images and videos so that only the content visible in the viewport loads first, and the rest is deferred until needed.
Did You Know: WordPress 5.5 and later have built-in lazy loading functionality for images, so you don’t need to install any additional plugins for basic image lazy loading.
WordPress 6.7 even supports modern image formats like WebP and AVIF that are highly optimized.
4. Preload Key Resources
Preloading important resources like fonts, CSS, and JavaScript files can help the browser load essential elements faster and improve LCP. When fonts and CSS are not preloaded, the browser may delay rendering the page while waiting to download these resources.
Solution: Use the rel=”preload” attribute in your HTML for critical resources such as the main font or key stylesheets. This ensures they are fetched as early as possible in the page-loading process.
Tip: Preloading can be especially beneficial for Google Fonts or custom fonts that might otherwise delay text rendering, contributing to a slower LCP.
5. Eliminate Render-Blocking Resources
Render-blocking resources like JavaScript and CSS files can delay the rendering of the largest content on your page, negatively affecting LCP. If these resources are not optimized, they can hold up the rendering process until they are completely loaded.
Solution: Minimize and defer JavaScript and CSS files where possible. By deferring non-critical scripts and styles until after the initial page load, you can improve LCP times.
Tip: Use a tool like Autoptimize to combine, minify, and defer JavaScript and CSS, reducing the load time and preventing unnecessary delays.
6. Reduce Third-Party Script Impact
Third-party scripts, such as ads, social media widgets, or analytics tracking, can often add significant loading time to your page. These scripts are sometimes loaded from external servers that may not be optimized, which can negatively impact your LCP.
Solution: Limit the use of third-party scripts and use asynchronous loading for those that are necessary. This ensures these scripts do not block the rendering of the page.
7. Minimize CSS and JavaScript Execution Time
Heavy JavaScript execution can delay the LCP by forcing the browser to spend more time processing the code rather than rendering the content.
Solution: Minimize your JavaScript execution time by reducing unnecessary code, optimizing loops, and removing unused JavaScript libraries.
8. Optimize Web Fonts
Web fonts (such as Google Fonts) can impact LCP by delaying text rendering. If fonts are not loaded promptly, users will see fallback fonts until the custom font finishes loading, causing a delay in text display.
Solution: Optimize the loading of web fonts by using font-display: swap, which allows text to be displayed with a fallback font until the custom font is fully loaded, improving LCP times.
9. Reduce JavaScript Execution Time on Critical Path
JavaScript execution time affects the rendering time of the page, contributing to delays in the LCP. The critical rendering path should be optimized so that JavaScript execution does not block page rendering.
Solution: Reduce unnecessary JavaScript and place scripts at the bottom of the page or use the async or defer attributes to load scripts after the page has started rendering.
How to Improve First Input Delay (FID) Core Web Vitals
A slow FID can create a frustrating user experience, leading to higher bounce rates and lower engagement. Optimizing FID is crucial for ensuring that your WordPress website feels responsive and user-friendly.
Below are several ways you can optimize FID to improve your Core Web Vitals and boost both user experience and SEO rankings.
1. Eliminate Unnecessary JavaScript
JavaScript plays a significant role in the interactivity of a page, but excessive or poorly optimized JavaScript can drastically delay the time it takes for the browser to respond to user input, increasing FID. Heavy or non-essential JavaScript can create a bottleneck, preventing the browser from processing interactions efficiently.
Solution: Minimize the amount of JavaScript on your page by removing unused or unnecessary scripts. Ensure that essential scripts (those required for initial page functionality) are loaded quickly, while non-essential scripts (such as analytics, ads, or additional widgets) are deferred or loaded asynchronously.
Tip: Use the defer or async attributes in your <script> tags to ensure that non-essential JavaScript doesn’t block the rendering of the page or delay user interactions.
2. Minimize Third-Party Scripts
External scripts like ads, embedded content, and social media integrations are often essential for functionality but can contribute to a higher FID if not optimized. These scripts are often loaded from external servers, which can slow down the process and block the browser from responding to user interactions.
Solution: Reduce the number of third-party scripts and ensure that the remaining essential scripts are loaded asynchronously or deferred. Asynchronous loading allows the page to load and become interactive without waiting for external resources to complete its loading process.
3. Optimize Web Fonts
Web fonts, while essential for branding and design, can block page rendering and delay user interactions, especially if they are not optimized. When the browser has to download and render custom fonts before showing any content, it increases the time users wait to interact with the page.
Solution: Optimize the way web fonts are loaded by using the font-display: swap property in your CSS. This allows the browser to display fallback fonts immediately while waiting for the custom fonts to load in the background, improving the time users can start interacting with the page.
4. Use Efficient JavaScript Frameworks
Some JavaScript frameworks or libraries, such as React or Vue.js, can cause a delay in FID if they are not used properly. These frameworks tend to require more JavaScript to execute, which can delay initial page interactions.
Solution: Opt for lightweight or efficient JavaScript frameworks and libraries that minimize the amount of code executed on the main thread. Also, consider server-side rendering (SSR) or static site generation (SSG), which can reduce the amount of JavaScript required to load the page.
Tip: If your WordPress site is using a custom theme or plugin built with a heavy JavaScript framework, try to find alternatives or implement best practices to minimize JavaScript load.
For instance, a headless WordPress site can leverage SSR to ensure faster loading times and quicker FID.
5. Reduce Main Thread Work
Heavy tasks or long-running JavaScript functions can block the main thread, delaying how quickly the browser can respond to user interactions. The main thread is responsible for rendering content and processing user input, so excessive work on this thread can directly impact FID.
Solution: Break up long-running JavaScript tasks into smaller chunks that can be processed asynchronously. Tools like Web Workers can help offload tasks to a background thread, reducing the workload on the main thread and improving FID.
6. Enable Service Workers
Service workers allow you to cache assets, manage background data, and enable offline functionality, all of which contribute to faster page load times and quicker interaction response. When properly implemented, service workers can reduce reliance on network requests, speeding up both page load and user interactions.
Solution: Implement service workers to cache key assets and reduce network calls for static resources like images, CSS, and JavaScript files.
How to Improve Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) Core Web Vitals
Here are some effective strategies to improve CLS:
1. Set Size for Images and Videos
Images and videos can cause layout shifts if their dimensions are not defined in advance. When a user accesses a page, the browser has to calculate how much space each element will occupy.
If the size of images or videos is not predefined, they may load after the rest of the page is rendered, pushing content down or to the side, which results in a shift in the layout.
Solution: Always define explicit sizes for images, videos, and other media elements in your CSS or HTML. This allows the browser to reserve the appropriate space for them, ensuring that no unexpected shifts occur as these elements load.
2. Avoid Late-Loading Fonts and Styles
Fonts and CSS stylesheets that load late can cause layout shifts when the fonts finally load and replace the fallback fonts used initially. These shifts occur when the text changes size or position due to the custom fonts being applied after the page has been rendered. If your site relies heavily on custom fonts, this can be a common source of CLS issues.
Solution: To prevent layout shifts caused by late-loading fonts, ensure that your fonts and stylesheets are loaded early, preferably as part of the initial page load.
3. Preload Important Resources
Preloading important resources tells the browser to prioritize the loading of certain elements—like fonts, CSS files, and JavaScript—before other less-critical resources.
Without preloading, these resources could be delayed, causing layout shifts as the content changes after it has initially loaded. Preloading essential resources helps avoid unnecessary delays and minimizes unexpected shifts in the layout.
Solution: Use resource hints like <link rel=”preload” href=”URL” as=”font”> or <link rel=”preload” href=”style.css” as=”style”> to instruct the browser to load key resources early. This ensures that they are ready when the page is rendered and prevents the layout from shifting as these resources load later.
4. Use Explicit Dimensions for Ads and Other Dynamic Content
Advertising, embedded videos, and other dynamic content can contribute to CLS if their dimensions aren’t defined in advance. As ads load, they often push content around, causing a layout shift. This is especially problematic on WordPress sites, where ad scripts are often added dynamically.
Solution: Always define the width and height for ads and dynamic content in the page layout. This helps the browser reserve space for these elements before they load, preventing content from shifting as the page loads.
5. Limit Animations that Affect Layout
While animations can enhance the user experience, certain types of animations that affect layout (such as moving elements or resizing) can lead to layout shifts if not handled correctly.
Solution: Limit the use of animations that affect layout during the page load. If animations are necessary, make sure they do not influence the size or position of critical elements on the page.
6. Optimize Fonts with Font Subsetting
Fonts can also be a source of layout shifts if large font files are used that contain unnecessary characters or glyphs. A large font file increases the load time and can cause text to shift when it’s finally rendered.
Solution: Subset your fonts to only include the characters you need. For example, if your site is primarily in English, there’s no need to load characters for multiple languages.
Google Core Web Vitals Optimization: A Win for SEO and User Experience
In conclusion, optimizing Google Core Web Vitals is not just about ticking boxes for Google’s SEO criteria. It’s about ensuring that your website provides the best possible experience for users. Whether you’re working on a WordPress site for a small business or a large automotive dealership, focusing on LCP, FID, and CLS will ensure your site ranks higher in Google Search while delivering better UX.
The ultimate takeaway here is that Core Web Vitals optimization should be a priority for anyone looking to improve their Google Core Web Vitals SEO. With the right techniques, tools, and mindset, you’ll improve your website’s performance, enhance user engagement, and enjoy the benefits of higher rankings and increased conversions. Happy optimizing!
FAQs
1. What Are Google Core Web Vitals?
Google Core Web Vitals are a set of metrics that measure user experience on a webpage. They focus on loading speed (LCP), interactivity (FID), and visual stability (CLS).
3. How to Fix Google Core Web Vitals?
Fixing Core Web Vitals requires addressing issues with server response time, optimizing images, reducing JavaScript, and preventing layout shifts. Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to get detailed recommendations.
4. How to Improve Google Core Web Vitals?
Improve Core Web Vitals by optimizing server performance, compressing images, implementing lazy loading, and reducing JavaScript execution time. Regular testing with Google Search Console is essential.