Improving your Core Web Vitals: A Short Guide

In today’s digital world, having a slow, clunky website is like showing up to a race in a horse and buggy. You’re not going to win any medals, and you’re definitely not going to impress Google. That’s where Core Web Vitals come in – they’re Google’s way of measuring how user-friendly your site is. So, let’s dive into how you can give your website the boost it needs.

What Are Core Web Vitals?

Before we jump into the how-to, let’s break down what we’re dealing with. Core Web Vitals are three specific factors that Google considers crucial in a webpage’s overall user experience:

1. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Fancy talk for “how fast does your main content load?”
2. First Input Delay (FID): Or, “how quickly can users interact with your page?”
3. Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): In other words, “does your content jump around on the page?”

Speeding Up Your Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

Think of LCP as the sprinter of your website. You want it fast – ideally under 2.5 seconds. Here’s how to shave off those precious milliseconds:

1. Put your content on a diet: Compress those images and minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML.
2. Embrace the future with next-gen formats: Convert your images to WebP or AVIF. Your users’ eyes won’t know the difference, but their load times will.
3. Lazy load like a pro: Only load what’s immediately visible. The rest can wait its turn.
4. Get cosy with a CDN: A Content Delivery Network can serve your content from servers closer to your users. It’s like opening a coffee shop on every corner.

Reducing First Input Delay (FID)

FID is all about responsiveness. You want your site to react faster than a cat to a cucumber. Aim for under 100 milliseconds.

1. Break up long tasks: If your JavaScript is running a marathon, break it into sprints.
2. Use a web worker: Offload heavy lifting to a background thread. Your main thread will thank you.
3. Reduce JavaScript execution time: Audit your third-party scripts. Do you really need that fancy but slow-loading widget?

Minimising Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

CLS is about stability. You don’t want your page elements doing the cha-cha while loading. Keep it under 0.1.

1. Always set size attributes on your images and videos: It’s like reserving a parking spot for each element.
2. Make room for ads: If you’re using ads, reserve space for them. Don’t let them barge in and push everything else around.
3. Be careful with dynamically injected content: If you must use it, make sure it doesn’t disrupt the existing content.

Putting It All Together

Improving your Core Web Vitals isn’t just about pleasing Google’s algorithms (though that’s a nice bonus). It’s about creating a better experience for your users. A fast, responsive, and stable website keeps visitors happy and more likely to stick around.

Remember, this is a journey, not a destination. Web technologies are always evolving, and so should your optimisation strategies. Keep testing and improving.

Tools of the Trade

You don’t have to go at this alone. There are plenty of tools to help you measure and improve your Core Web Vitals:

• Google’s PageSpeed Insights: Your one-stop-shop for Core Web Vitals analysis.
• Lighthouse: Built into Chrome DevTools, it’s like having a web performance coach in your browser.
• Web Vitals Chrome Extension: For quick checks on the fly.

Improving your Core Web Vitals might seem like a technical challenge, but at its heart, it’s about creating a better web for everyone. By focusing on speed, responsiveness, and stability, you’re not just ticking boxes for Google – you’re building a website that people will actually enjoy using.

So, are you ready to give your website the tune-up it deserves? Your users (and your search rankings) will thank you for it. If you need support in improving your Core Web Vitals, please get in touch with Atomic.