In this article, you will learn the following:
An overview of the new Google Update
How will this new update impact your Google ranking?
How to test your website’s Core Web Vitals
How to optimize your website’s Core Web Vitals
How WooCommerce websites will be impacted
An overview of the new Google Update
The “Page Experience” update, scheduled to begin rolling out mid-June will focus on what Google calls the “Core Web Vitals”, which are three metrics used to test your website’s load-time.
The Core Web Vitals metrics are made up of your website’s Largest Contentful Paint, Total Blocking Time, and Cumulative layout shift.
These metrics assess how quickly your main page’s content loads, how quickly the user can interact with the website, and if the page shows an unexpected visual layout shift (which can contribute to a poor user experience).
How will this new update impact your Google Ranking?
Google states that having a Good score on your Core Web Vitals metrics can lead to an increase in ranking.
”Pages that receive a score of “good” on Core Web Vitals are achieving an aspirational level of user experience, and might get a boost in the page experience component of ranking, provided other components of the page experience signal (HTTPS, mobile-friendliness, etc) are deemed OK.”
Google also states that in the event that sites have similar content, the Page Experience will become more important in terms of ranking.
“A good page experience doesn't override having great, relevant content. However, in cases where there are multiple pages that have similar content, page experience becomes much more important for visibility in Search.”
See the full answer from Google here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/thread/104436075/core-web-vitals-page-experience-faqs-updated-march-2021?hl=en
How to test your website’s Core Web Vitals
There are six tools offered by Google that you can use to test your website’s Core Web Vitals.
There are also independent tools that can be used to test Core Web Vitals such as GT Metrix and Webpagetest.org.
Google’s PageSpeed Insights and Search Console tools are the most popular for testing Core Web Vitals.
How to optimize your website’s Core Web Vitals metrics
Optimizing your website's Core Web Vitals can be tricky. Most developers struggle to meet Google’s suggested load times.
We find that it’s easier to break down the causes behind your slow web vitals.
Here are some of the factors that we look at when putting together a plan for Core Web Vitals optimizations:
- Is your WordPress theme bloated?
- Are you using a pagebuilder?
- Do you have bloated plugins?
- Is the hosting company you’re on a shared server?
- Does the site run any ads?
- Does the website have excessive third-party JS?
- Is the website using an LMS?
- Are the images correctly scaled, compressed, and loaded in Google’s recommended format?
- Do you have third-party Fonts through Google, Adobe, Fontawesome?
- Do you have basic caching set up through the server or through the website itself?
- Does the Database need cleaning up?
- Do you have a Woocommerce store?
How will WooCommerce websites be impacted by the new update?
WooCommerce websites are especially slow because they add extra scripts and cart fragments. You may also need WooCommerce addons for your site, which adds even more code onto the website.
Google’s new update also provides a great opportunity to understand how speed impacts your conversion-rates.
If you visit wpostats.com, you will find Case studies and experiments demonstrating the impact of web performance optimization on user experience from some of the largest websites built on the WordPress platform.
How can you prepare your website?
We offer a free PageSpeed Analysis and optimization strategy plan.