What does the addition of the Core Web Vital Signals to Google’s Search Console mean for your website? It means you may have to do some work on your website to resolve any problems it found.
This change will affect how Google ranks websites similar to how metrics such as being mobile-friendly, secure and ad-free affected the rank your site received.
If your site has flagged issues or isn’t performing as it once did, you may require the expert assistance of a web designer or SEO company like SoFloWeb.
3 New SEO Metrics For Ranking Pages In Organic Search Results
You may have seen a link pop up in Search Console recently, it is your website’s Core Web Vitals. This new reporting section is rumored to be the next signal Google will use to rank websites in organic search results.
Page and User Experience To Become Page Ranking Signal
Google wants online users to have the best experience possible on the websites it selects to display at the top of organic results. These include the coveted featured answer snippet block as well as positions 1 through 10 on page 1 rankings.
Until now, quality of content has been a main focus in recent algorithm updates. To meet the requirements set by these core updates, the solution was to use the E.A.T. content strategy. With the announcement from Google about Core Web Vital signals getting added to Search Console, it means you’ll need to make some changes to your website to fix any issues that are flagged.
What Are The 3 New Core Web Vital Metrics?
There have been four metrics in place for awhile now that Google uses to rank websites and web pages in search results.
- Mobile Friendly Website (Responsive)
- Safe To Browse – Free of Malware & Viruses
- Has SSL Certificate (HTTPS)
- Intrusive Interstitials – No Pop-up Ads/Screen Takeover Ads
With the addition of Core Web Vital, Google is adding three more metrics which will all measure user experience.
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) is the metric used for timing how long it takes for the main content on a web page to load. The ideal load time set by Google for the LCP is 2.5 seconds.
Learn more about Largest Contentful Paint: https://web.dev/lcp/
First Input Delay (FID)
First Input Delay (FID) measures the time your website takes to respond to the very first on-page user interaction. These include clicking on buttons and links as well as JavaScript actions.
Slow loading or unresponsive pages lower user experience so the less time it takes for the user to go from the click to the end result will provide you with a low FID score.
Learn more about First Input Delay: https://web.dev/fid/
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) tracks how often website visitors encounter layout shifts while clicking on buttons and other elements on the website. A low CLS score on your web page means Google has scored it as having high user experience quality.
Learn more about Cumulative Layout Shift: https://web.dev/cls/
What Does This Mean For Your Website?
While we don’t have a definitive answer, we can tell you Google will use this data at some point to make changes to their search engine through a major algorithm update.
If you recall, a while ago Google added mobile usability to Search Console. It wasn’t long after that when all of the algorithm updates that came out included some sort of update to responsive issues. The same will happen with the Core Web Vital website data. Google will make an update that will require websites to meet new requirements pertaining to UX.
We’re guessing there will be a major core algorithm update late 2020 or early 2021. You have about 6 months to address the user and page experience signal issues detected in Search Console.