How Google’s New Ranking Criteria Will Improve Website Experience

In the last couple of years, usability has become a much more important element of a user’s website experience. How quickly a page loads and how well its on page elements function and adapt to either desktop or mobile, can be the difference between someone staying or leaving a site. It can also be damaging to a brand’s online reputation as 88% of users wouldn’t return to a site after a bad experience.

Additionally, Google has begun to include usability as part of their ranking criteria with their latest Core Web Vital update. The three Core Web Vitals are:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) measures how long it takes for a page’s main content to load – the optimal time is 2.5 seconds or less.
• First Input Delay (FID) looks at how long it takes for your page to become interactive – this should be less than 100 milliseconds.
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) measures how much unexpected shifting there is in your page content – a score of less than 0.1 is what you should aim for.

While these metrics may sound complicated, testing and optimizing for them is relatively straightforward. Google Search Console has a Core Web Vitals report that highlights the areas of your site in need of optimization. In addition, their PageSpeed Insights report shows any pages that are slow to load.

For more information on how to optimize a website for Core Web Vitals, Website Builder Expert have put together an infographic with the relevant information and advice: