What are Core Web Vitals?

Core Web Vitals (CWVs) are a set of performance metrics from Google that measure user experience on the web. They focus on three key areas: loading performance, interactivity, and visual stability. The Core Web Vitals cover aspects such as page load time, Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), Total Blocking Time (TBT), Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) and more. Together, these metrics can help you understand how your website is performing for users, so you can make improvements to improve the overall user experience.

Why are core web vitals important?

Core Web Vitals are important because they give marketers and developers insight into how users experience a website. Web Vitals represent a small set of core metrics that indicate whether you’re delivering a fast and (what Google calls) a great experience to your visitors. Knowing the performance of our site allows us to make changes so that users have a better experience when using it. This can lead to more satisfied customers, higher conversion rates and increased revenue for businesses. Additionally, since Core Web Vitals are now also part of Google’s ranking algorithm, improving your score in these metrics could help you improve your rankings in search engine result pages which will further increase traffic to your site.

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. To provide a good user experience, pages should have a FID of 100 milliseconds or less.

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): measures visual stability. To provide a good user experience, pages should maintain a CLS of 0.1. or less.

How to test core web vitals?

We like to use GTmetrix. There are other options too:

1. Use the Lighthouse tool: Lighthouse is an open-source, automated tool for improving the performance, quality, and correctness of web pages. It can be run from the command line, or as a Chrome Extension, and it provides a detailed report on the performance of a webpage, including Core Web Vitals.
2. Use the PageSpeed Insights tool: PageSpeed Insights is a tool developed by Google that analyzes the performance of a webpage and provides recommendations for improving its speed and user experience. It also includes a section on Core Web Vitals, and provides detailed guidance on how to optimize your website for these metrics.
3. Use Google Search Console: A free tool provided by Google that helps website owners monitor and maintain their site’s presence in Google search results. There is a Core Web Vitals report that will show you how well each page of your website is performing.

Regardless of which tool you use, it’s important to keep in mind that it’s not enough to just check your Core Web Vitals scores. You also need to take action to improve them, using the recommendations and guidance provided by the tools mentioned above.

Core web vitals in web development

In addition to their potential impact on search rankings, Core Web Vitals are also important because they can help ensure that a website is fast, responsive, and easy to use for all users, regardless of their device or connection speed. This can lead to a better overall user experience, which can help increase the likelihood that users will return to the site in the future. All WordPress websites built by Bend Marketing are guaranteed to pass CWVs tests before launching. Contact us today!