How to prepare your website for Google Core Web Vitals

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How to prepare your website for Google Core Web
Vitals?
To understand Google Core Web Vitals we need to
first have a general idea about Google
algorithms. Google algorithm is an intricate
system used to extract data from its search
index and immediately deliver the best possible
results for a search query. Search engines use a
combination of algorithms and various ranking
signals to deliver web pages on search engine
results pages (SERPs). How do algorithms
work? Googles algorithms make your work easy by
searching out Web pages with keywords that you
used to search. Ranks are assigned to each page
based on various factors, like how many times
these keywords appear on the page. There have
been many updates from Google to date. Here, we
have put together a list of Googles major
algorithmic changes in the past years. We will
aim to explain how prevention and cure will save
your website from the latest Core Web Vital
update rolled out by Google last December.
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• Major Google Algorithm updates in recent years
• Penguin Update
• Pirate Update
• Hummingbird Update
• Pigeon Update
• Mobile-Friendly Update
• RankBrain Algorithm
• Possum Update
• Fred Update
• Medic Core Update
• BERT
• Featured Snippet Deduplication
• Core Algorithm Update
• December 2020 Core Update

What are Core Web Vitals? Core Web Vitals were
introduced earlier this year and are devised to
measure user experience in terms of
responsiveness, speed, and visual stability of a
page.
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The defined Core Web Vitals are Largest
Contentful Paint Total time taken for a pages
main content to load. The ideal LCP measurement
is 2.5 seconds or faster. First Input Delay
Total time taken for a page to become
interactive. The ideal should be less than 100
ms. Cumulative Layout Shift This is the amount
of unexpected layout shift of visual page
content. The best measurement for CLS is less
than 0.1.
Core Web Vitals may keep changing every year as
user expectations of web pages change.
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Why Core Web Vitals are important for my
website? Page experience is going to be an
official Google ranking factor now. It will be a
mix of various factors that Google considers
important for user experience. Some of the
factors considered important for user experience
are HTTPS, Mobile-friendliness, Lack of
interstitial pop-ups, Safe-browsing i.e.
without malware on the page. Core Web Vitals will
be the most important part of this score. As per
Googles announcement, core web vitals will make
up the biggest chunk of page experience score.
But of course, that is not the only ranking
factor to get you a better ranking. There are
approximately 200 factors used to rank sites in a
search. While all components of page experience
are essential, we need to prioritize pages with
the best information overall, even if some of the
aspects are subpar. When you have multiple pages
with similar content, page experience becomes
important for visibility search purposes. In any
case, all websites have around six months to
improve their Core Web Vital scores because
these changes will be rolled out after notice is
provided. Let me now explain all the three main
components of the Core Web Vitals for a better
understanding of the entire algorithm. Largest
Contentful Paint. What is LCP and How to improve
it? Largest Contentful Paint is a simple metric
that is also the biggest visual part of the
page. It is often an image or a big chunk of
text, the logic being once there is a visual
element to look at, the user starts getting
value from the page. An element can only be
relevant to LCP if it has rendered and is
visible. Images that are further down the page do
not fall in this category. https//abkdigital.com
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• The elements which can largely be considered
  relevant to Largest Contentful Paint are
• Image elements inside an SVG element
• Img elements
• Video elements
• Block-level elements containing text nodes or
  inline-level text elements family
• Block-level elements containing text nodes
  or inline-level text
• elements family
• Elements with background images loaded via the
  URL function
• To rectify slow LCP, we should first know the
  main causes of it. The most common causes of a
  poor LCP are
• Slow resource load times
• Slow server response times
• Client-side rendering
• Render-blocking JavaScript and CSS
• Steps to Improve LCP time
• Serve content faster
• LCP being a content metric, it only makes sense
  to start with how long it takes to retrieve
  content from your server.
• Activate a Content Delivery Network

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• Cache HTML
• If your CDN (Content Delivery Network) uses edge
  servers, then cache the content to avoid
  reloading every time. If you do not use edge
  servers, you can cache content by managing the
  cloud providers cache behavior.
• Serve cached HTML content through a service
  worker
• Use a service worker to further expedite the
  process and serve the cached content first. This
  means, if the LCP is a cached image, a service
  worker runs in the browser background and
  intercepts requests from the server making it
  possible to cache the HTML page content and
  update the cache when the content is changed.
• Render the content faster by Clearing the path
  for the LCP
• Scripts and style sheets are render-blocking
  resources that delay FCP, and consequently LCP.
  To counteract these from blocking the LCP, defer
  any non-critical JavaScript and CSS and remove
  any unused CSS or move it to another style
  sheet.
• Optimize and minify Content where possible
• LCP aims to get useful content onto the screen as
  quickly as possible. The time taken to load
  above-the-fold elements has a direct impact on
  LCP. Smaller files faster loading. You may
  convert images into lighter formats such as JPEG
  2000, JPEG XR, or WebP, avoid using an image
  unless 100 required, and lastly compress images
  with Imagemin

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For useful tips on content management, click on
the link below Importance of blog marketing in
brand building How to improve First Input Delay
(FID) for your site? FID measures the time it
takes for a user to interact with your site page.
These interactions include Choosing a menu
option, clicking a link in the navigation,
entering your email, etc. FID is important
because it considers how real-life users
interact with websites. Here are the tips and
guidelines of how you can improve your sites FID
scores.
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• Remove all non-essential third-party scripts
• Same as FCP, third-party scripts such as Google
  Analytics, heatmaps, etc. will negatively impact
  FID.
• Minimize JavaScript
• It is very difficult for a user to interact with
  a page if the browser is still loading up Java
  Script. Hence minimizing or deferring it on your
  page helps improve FID.
• Use a browser cache
• This will help in loading content faster which in
  return helps the users browser speed through
  Java Script loading tasks.
• What is Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) and how you
  can improve it for your site?
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) measures the
  visual stability of a page. This means, if
  elements on your page move around while the page
  is loading, then CLS is high which is a bad
  signal.
• What is required is that the page elements be
  stable while loading. That way, users know where
  links, images, and fields are located when the
  page is loaded and dont click on something by
  mistake.

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Simple tips to minimize CLS Utilize set size
attribute dimensions for any media like images,
GIFs, videos This helps the users browser
know how much space that element will take up on
that page and wont change it randomly as the
page fully loads. Ensure ads elements have a
reserved space This will ensure that they dont
suddenly appear on the page. Keeps content in a
place where it is meant to be and not pushed
around. Add new UI elements below the
fold Doing this ensures they dont push the
content down that the user expects to stay
where it is. Wrapping up With the Core Web
Vitals being applied in May 2021, Google puts
site speed and user experience at the top
priority. We usually look at SEO holistically,
but there are many different segments and
categories to it. Working on all of them
simultaneously to build the best site out there
will get you through the process of updating
with the new algorithm. The above-mentioned
guidelines will help you improve the Core Web
Vitals scores and bring you from the red zone to
the green sone effectively. But what you also
need is to be consistent with the user
experience quality. If you are unsure of the
methods to apply you may contact an SEO agency
for a professional outlook.
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For more insight into the SEO technical world,
please read our blog below Top 10 must use SEO T
ools you cannot do without For the latest
updates in the SEO world and to know the services
offered by us Please visit our SEO, SEM, and SMM
service pages.
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