Still Time to Boost Your Core Web Vitals Ahead of Google’s Rankings Change

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In the past, we mentioned how Google planned on incorporating “page experience” signals into their ranking system. 

To use Google’s own words, “these signals measure how users perceive the experience of interacting with a web page and contribute to (Google’s) ongoing work to ensure people get the most helpful and enjoyable experiences from the web.” 

Of course, for your Google ranking to be most helpful and enjoyable for your company, you want to make sure that these “page experience” signals are as strong as possible. 

That’s one more thing that we can help with. That’s true whether we’re designing a rehab center website, business lawyer SEO, or anything else. 

There’s still time to improve your page experience, but it’s running out. 

Google, in November, announced that “the page experience signals in ranking will roll out in May 2021.” That’s only a few weeks from now. 

 

Core Web Vitals and Other Page Experience Signals 

 

Even if you’ve never looked into “page experience” signals, you know how important they are. Specifically, you know how important they are when you’re on a website that doesn’t have them. 

For example, “Mobile Friendly” is one, as is “Safe Browsing,” in addition to “HTTPS” and “No Intrusive Institials.” 

So, even if you aren’t sure about “page experience” signals, you know what it means to open a page on your phone that, well, doesn’t open. Or, a page that is flat out unsafe to open and is loaded with interstitials and that keep intruding.

The “Core Web Vitals” are the three signals, in addition to the four already mentioned, that are going to be included in your Google ranking. 

They are “Loading,” “Interactivity,” and “Visual Stability.” 

 

A Baseline for “Good” 

 

Obviously, you want to be as good at all of these as possible. 

That said, Google has offered a baseline of how “good” you should be. 

As this blog states, “Loading” (or “Largest Contentful Paint”) is a measurement of “loading performance.” So, “to provide a good user experience, sites should strive to have LCP occur within the first 2.5 seconds of the page starting to load.” 

Interactivity is measured by “First Input Delay” or “FID.” Google says that “sites should strive to have an FID of less than 100 milliseconds.” If that feels like it’s very fast, it is. 

Lastly, “visual stability” is measured by “Cumulative Layout Shift,” and a good site should have a “CLS score of less than 0.1” 

These are some of the things that we’ve been helping our clients with on their sites (among so much else). 

 

“Is Page Experience More Important than Content?” 

 

No. 

Even if you hit all of the above benchmarks, even if you shatter them, you’re still going to need great content to rank as high as possible on Google. 

Again, you can take Google’s word for it. 

“While page experience is important, Google still seeks to rank pages with the best information overall, even if the page experience is subpar. Great page experience doesn’t override having great page content. However, in cases where there are many pages that may be similar in relevant, page experience can be much more important for visibility in (Google) Search.” 

So, to sum up, yes, content is still important. If you’re looking at your site in comparison to your competitor’s site and you wonder why they’re doing better, it could be because of these signals. 

It could be because of any number of reasons that we can help you find. 

I absolutely understand that some of this stuff, some of the jargon, can seem off-putting, even a little intimidating. 

But, really, it’s an opportunity. 

It’s an opportunity to make your site better, to offer your customers more, and to have greater, further success. 

For help with this or anything else related to web design, business lawyer SEO, or so much else, you can reach us at (888) 477-9540.