Google Search Console , an essential tool for any SEO strategy, offers a specific report on Core Web Vitals. It also uses real website usage data.
Report results are grouped by status (Bad, Needs Improvement, and Good), allowing you to identify which pages need adjustments. This tool provides historical performance data that PageSpeed Insights does not provide.
JavaScript library
You can also use an open-source JavaScript czech republic phone number list library Core Web Vitals, which can be used with any analytics provider that supports custom metrics. In this case, you must have programming proficiency . Here you can see a step-by-step guide to using the web-vitals library .
Web Vitals (Google Chrome Extension)
The Web Vitals extension for Google Chrome brings lab data for a particular page that the user accesses.
The intent is to provide real-time performance feedback to developers as they make changes to the code.
Lighthouse
Lighthouse is also a popular tool for measuring website speed, but also other elements of the on-page experience. In the reports, you can check LCP, FID, and CLS data. PageSpeed Insights itself uses Lighthouse’s lab data in its reports.
This tool is available in the Chrome DevTools feature set or as an extension for Google Chrome .
WebPageTest
WebPageTest is another page experience analysis tool. It uses lab data to report Core Web Vitals metrics. It allows you to analyze individual pages and provides guidance for improving performance.
How to improve your Core Web Vitals score?
If you’ve already used the tools above to test the initial vaccine launch some your site and found that it’s not performing well on Core Web Vitals, it’s time to tweak it.
However, you will find that the tool’s recommendations are quite technical . Therefore, if you are not proficient in programming and technical SEO , you will likely need the help of a professional to make these adjustments.
Below are the top tips from the tools to improve Core Web Vitals metrics and achieve Google’s recommended values.
Improve server response time
The longer it takes for the browser to b2b reviews receive content from the server, the longer it takes to render elements on the screen . This delay affects all loading metrics, including LCP and FID.
Therefore, it is important to improve this response time and you can take some actions to do so:
- optimize the server ( avoid shared servers );
- direct users to a CDN next to them;
- cache part or all of the content of the HTML page ;
- serve cached HTML pages first;
- anticipate third-party connections.
Minify and defer JavaScript and CSS
Scripts and stylesheets are features that can slow down Largest Contentful Paint (LCP). Before rendering any content, the browser needs to parse the HTML of the page. And these elements can cause that parsing to pause and delay the loading of the content.
So, to avoid delay, you can minify code, which means removing unnecessary characters to reduce files and deferring the loading of scripts and stylesheets that are not critical to the page.
Reduce loading time for slow resources
Some elements are critical to page loading and affect LCP.
You can follow some steps to speed up this loading:
- optimize and compress images;
- preload important resources;
- compress text files;
- deliver different assets based on network connection (adaptive service);
- enable caching with a service worker.
Break down heavy Javascript into smaller asynchronous tasks
While the browser runs JavaScript, it cannot respond to user interactions. Therefore, heavy scripts can delay the website response , i.e. First Input Delay (FID).
To fix this problem, break up long JavaScript tasks into smaller asynchronous tasks. These long tasks block the main activity for 50 milliseconds or more and are a sign that JavaScript is working longer than the user currently needs.
Therefore, splitting into smaller tasks tends to reduce page input delay.
Use a web worker
A web worker enables JavaScript, which delays responding to users, to run in the background .
Non- UI operations are moved to a worker thread, while the browser can perform the tasks requested by the user. This can improve FID.
Uses a font loading API
Loading web fonts can also cause loading delays and sudden layout changes that disrupt the experience.
While they are not loaded, the browser may use an invisible font (Flash of Invisible Text or FOIT) or a generic font (Flash of Unstyled Text or FOUT), which can misconfigure the layout. Then, when the original font is loaded, the layout suddenly changes.
To prevent this from happening, you can use a font loading API, which ensures that your text fonts are preloaded .
Includes width and height attributes for images and videos
Always include width and height size attributes on images and videos. Lacking this setting is one of the main reasons for poor CLS performance, as these elements can take a long time to load and cause sudden layout changes.
On the other hand, when you define the width and height measurements, the browser already knows the correct space it needs to allocate to that specific content.
Reserve fixed spaces for dynamic elements
Dynamic content and ads also often cause unexpected layout changes during loading. They can change size depending on what is about to appear and often end up pushing the main content.
One solution to avoid this is to reserve static space for this type of content, rather than allowing the ad to automatically resize your space . Try to set the most likely size based on history, or choose the largest possible dimension that avoids space expansion.
Now, if you want to learn more about Core Web Vitals optimization, Google has created a comprehensive piece of content with tips for each metric: LCP , FID , and CLS . You’ll notice how a few tweaks can already improve your score and the performance of your pages.
Remember that Core Web Vitals optimizations are intended to improve the user experience on your website . As a result, Google will notice your efforts and rank your pages higher in the SERPs.
If you liked this article about this new Google feature, keep learning and read our post about SEO trends . It’s important to know what’s coming so you can prepare your website.
