Your Core Web Vitals refer to a set of specific website performance metrics that are considered crucial for delivering a good user experience. The Core Web Vitals focus on three key aspects of web page loading, interactivity, and the visual stability of a website. These metrics are:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): LCP measures the loading performance of a web page by determining how quickly the largest content element, such as an image or text block, becomes visible to the user. To provide a good user experience, LCP should occur within the first 2.5 seconds of the page starting to load.
- First Input Delay (FID): FID measures the interactivity of a web page by gauging the time it takes for the page to respond to the user’s first interaction, such as clicking a button or a link. It quantifies the delay in milliseconds between the user’s action and the browser’s response. For a good user experience, FID should be less than 100 milliseconds.
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): CLS measures the visual stability of a web page. It quantifies the amount of unexpected layout shifts that occur during the page’s loading process. Layout shifts can be disruptive, particularly when they cause elements to move around unexpectedly, leading to misclicks or a poor reading experience. To provide a good user experience, pages should maintain a CLS score of less than 0.1.
If your website is receiving a low page speed score from Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool then you may be having one of these 3 issues. The experts at Tornado Design are here to help you navigate these core web vital errors.
How to Check Core Web Vitals
To check your Core Web Vitals you will want to head over to PageSpeed Insights to see where your site might be slowing down. Many different errors can appear when running a test on your webpage’s loading speed but here are a few common things to pay attention to.
- Reduce initial server response time
- Eliminate render-blocking resources
- Properly size images
While these are some of the most common issues we have seen, there can be many other reasons for slow loading times. If you have any questions, or concerns or you would like to have an expert look over your website for you. Feel free to contact us and a member of Tornado Design will reach out to help resolve any concerns you may have.
How to reduce initial server response time
This error is often referred to as (TTFB) or Time to First Byte. This means that when someone comes to your site, a request is sent to your hosting server to load the website files for your webpage.
If your host takes more than 600 milliseconds to respond to the request then this core web vital test will fail. Some people will automatically assume that your website hosting company is to blame but this is not always the case.
Having a slow theme or a large number of plugins can also slow down your server response time. There are ways to reduce your time to first byte, like removing unused plugins, updating your theme and much more.
How to eliminate render-blocking resources
The most common culprit when it comes to render-blocking resources is often JavaScript and CSS code. The good thing is that in many cases you may have CSS code that isn’t even being used on your site anymore or may not be necessary.
There are many instances when you can reduce CSS and JavaScript that isn’t being used due to site changes. Other times, you will have JavaScript that can be deferred to load later as a user scrolls to the section where it is being used.
By making these small changes you can increase your page load speed and improve the user experience on your site.
How to properly size images on your site
Depending on the platform your site is managed on, there are many different options for resizing images. WordPress for example offers a built-in media editor which allows you to crop images or simply reduce the dimensions of an image.
If you are somewhat tech-savvy and are familiar with using Adobe Photoshop, you can use it to edit images and upload the newly optimized image to your site.
In addition to manually updating your images, you can also use a content delivery network (CDN) to deliver your content from servers that are closer to your users. This is probably one of the fastest ways to load images to your site.
Remember to optimize your video content as well
If your website hosts video content, you should consider having it hosted elsewhere. Places like YouTube, Vimeo, and Wistia will host your videos and provide you with an embed code for your site.
By using an embed code you are able to keep your server from having to load large video files every time a user visits a webpage with a video on it and you are still able to engage your visitors without slowing down your site.
Improving your Core Web Vitals
You can improve your website’s core web vitals by using a caching plugin to optimize your website for loading performance.
Improving your core web vitals can improve your website’s performance and user experience, which can lead to higher search engine rankings and more website traffic. If you would like to have your site optimized for increased performance, we would love the opportunity to improve your website’s page load speed. Contact us today!
