By Katrina Kirsch

Long gone are the days of dial-up internet when web pages loaded line by line.

Today’s internet users expect an instant response, with 93% of people leaving a website because it didn’t load properly. No one wastes time on a poor experience.

To elevate the online experience, Google released Core Web Vitals — a set of metrics to help site owners measure the speed, responsiveness, and visual stability of their pages.

The Core Web Vitals report gives you insight into page performance, so you can improve your site experience and let the Google bots know it’s worthy of a high search ranking.

But why does speed and user experience matter for your business?

• If page load time increases from 1 second to 3 seconds, bounce rate increases 32%.

• If page load time increases from 1 second to 6 seconds, bounce rate increases by 106%. (Google)

A high bounce rate hurts your bottom line. Potential customers will simply jump to a competing site if yours is slow to load.

But if you learn what metrics to hit and start to improve your pages, Google will reward you with better rankings — and you’ll create a more enjoyable experience for potential customers.

To do so, you need to understand the metrics that make up the Core Web Vitals:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) measures the loading performance of a page. It considers the amount of time it takes to load the largest piece of content (typically a video, image, or text block) from when a user requests the URL. Google recommends sites keep LCP under 2.5 seconds for 75% of their page loads.
• First Input Delay (FID) measures the interactivity of a page. It’s the time between an action (think, clicking a button or a link) to when a browser responds to that action. The FID measurement comes from whatever element is clicked first, turning the page from a static to interactive. Responsiveness is crucial to making a good first impression with visitors by showing your site is reliable and running smoothly. Google recommends sites keep FID under 100 milliseconds for 75% of page loads.
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) measures all of the layout shifts that occur across a page. It’s scored from zero (no shifting) to a positive number (more shifting). Common causes of shifting are dropdown banner ads, buttons that appear, or images that cause a text block to move. These all contribute to a negative user experience, which is why it’s important to reduce the shifts that happen across your site. Google recommends sites aim for a CLS score of 0.1 or less.

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By analyzing millions of pages, Google found that users are 24% less likely to abandon loading pages when a site meets the above requirements. If you’re itching for more details, check out the research behind Defining the Core Web Vitals …read more

Source:: HubSpot Blog

Author: Aaron