If you’re like many people, you may be saying to yourself, “I’m sorry, what are core web vitals?” The truth is that you need to know so that you can be ready to deal with core web vitals for 2021. Web developers everywhere are about to be held to an additional standard. You need to be ready for what’s coming in 2021.

The purpose of core web vitals for 2021 is for Google to be able to determine several things regarding the user experience on a web page:

• How quickly does it load?
• How quickly can they interact with it?
• How quickly does it become stable?

Core web vitals are unique in that they don’t have anything to do with web content. Instead, it’s more about the experience the user has on a web page. Was it good? Was it free of frustration or annoyance? Was it useful? When the experience is taking place on mobile phones, these questions are especially important. Web users don’t have much tolerance for web pages that aren’t satisfying to use.

Just how important will core web vitals for 2021 be? Will it shift the landscape of SEO? It probably won’t be quite as dramatic as that. However, it will surely affect those websites locked in a fierce competition for viewers. There are, of course, other ranking factors going on. This is just one of many. However, it’s not something you want to get wrong. Otherwise, you’re giving competitors an advantage that you don’t have to.

 Core Web Vitals Rely on Three Measurement Tools

Core web vitals rely primarily on three things with very technical names: 

Largest contentful paint (LCP)

That’s a complicated phrase for something incredibly simple: page loading speed. Why the overly complicated term? Ask the tech geeks. At any rate, the LCP is determined by the size of an image or a video or the amount of text on the page. As a result, that will affect web design decisions going forward.

This is apparently of prime concern to Google. What’s the biggest element being loaded onto your web page and how fast is it being loaded? It’s a simple thing. However, the LCP can be influenced by a number of factors, including your CSS, JavaScript and client-side rendering. In analyzing core web vitals for 2021, don’t forget that page load speed continues to be a ranking factor.

Cumulative layout shift (CLS)

Another unnecessarily complicated phrase that basically refers to how quickly a web page becomes stable. It’s OK if you’re not certain what that means. Think of those times when you landed on a web page and you went to click a button, only to see the layout shift a split second before you click it. As a result, you click something that you didn’t intend to.

This is a game some websites play to get you to click something that you normally wouldn’t. As you can imagine, this is a terrible viewer experience. Anyone coming to a website isn’t going to be happy about what they may perceive as some kind of bait and switch. That probably isn’t your intention. Instead, it’s probably errors that occurred during the build. However, web developers need to correct this issue. 

First input delay (FID)

Another 10-dollar term, meaning essentially how fast something happens when a user clicks on a button or anything triggering a JavaScript event. In other words, how quickly is the command executed? Does a viewer click a button and get an instant result or does the website hang in limbo for a few seconds?

Web users aren’t known for their patience. People on mobile devices are probably even less patient than PC users. Therefore, you don’t want to leave them hanging for an action to happen. There are any number of reasons the result isn’t happening fast enough. Clearly, if this is an issue, it needs to be addressed as soon as possible.

Get Your Core Web Vitals for 2021 in Order

Some websites have little to do to get ready for core web vitals to be measured. Other websites have some work to do. Although core web vitals for 2021 aren’t necessarily the most important thing that will be on your plate, they are something that you must pay attention to.

Core web vitals are by their nature very technical. Certainly not something a business can easily handle on its own. Understanding them requires advanced web design knowledge. Dreamscape Marketing can help you with this process. Call us at 888.307.7304 and let’s discuss your core web vitals.