How to Improve Core Web Vitals Using Google Pagespeed Insights

A recent analysis from Contentsquare concluded that your site can find itself with a 15% lower user engagement rate due to issues related to site speed. It turns out users get frustrated and will bail on your business if they find your site loads too slowly or otherwise isn’t as responsive as expected. The difference between a user’s perception of your site being “fast” or “slow” can come down to microseconds.

We know that engaged users are more likely to convert into customers. Fortunately, the internet’s best friend – Google – has one very handy tool to help you speed up your site, and get that 15% of user engagement back.

What does the Google PageSpeed Insights tool do exactly? It helps developers determine how fast their website loads for users. It checks three “core web vitals” to see if they meet or exceed the benchmarks for page load speed. These core web vitals are usually affected by excessively large images, complex & often unnecessary JavaScript, and poorly optimized CSS. Failing the core web vitals check can affect your overall SEO rankings, and is one of the five signs that your site could use some SEO help, so it’s a good place to start optimizing to increase user engagement.

Improving each of these core web vital scores for your website can lead to:

• Better conversion rates - resulting in more leads or sales from the users who come to your website

• Improved bounce rates - increasing the likelihood that prospects spend more time consuming your content

• Higher organic rankings - because Google’s algorithm favors sites that provide what it considers to be a good user experience

But let’s break down these three core web vitals to give you a better understanding of what they are and how they affect user engagement behavior.

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

This core web vital represents how long it takes for the largest image or block of text to display on your webpage when a user first lands there. Pages with high loading times tend to have lower conversion rates and higher bounce rates. This is because the seconds spent waiting for content to load are usually when a user decides whether or not to stick around and consume the intended content on the page.

A good load time is 2.5 seconds or less; if you’re beyond 4 seconds, that’s a clear signal you need to optimize your page.

Key optimizations to improve your LCP score include compressing large images or converting them to more web-friendly formats like WebP, utilizing system fonts optimized for the web, and minifying your JavaScript, CSS, and HTML code. By addressing these areas, you can significantly enhance load speed, reduce bounce rates, and increase your chances of securing leads or sales.

Interaction to Next Paint (INP)

This core web vital measures how snappily your site responds to clicks on links and other elements of your page design. This can be a major source of frustration for users who experience noticeable delays between their action of clicking and the site’s response. An unexpectedly low response time leads to unwanted clicks, which frustrate the user and can create inaccurate data in your analytics.

A good response time is 200 milliseconds (ms), whereas a poor response time is over 500 ms. Using a Real User Monitoring solution – which delivers detailed data from individual user sessions – can help to identify the specific interactions that cause low INP scores, making it easier to prioritize optimization solutions.

Implementing these improvements will make your site more responsive to user interactions, minimizing frustration and encouraging users to stay longer and explore more deeply. This increased engagement makes it more likely that they will take the desired conversion actions.

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

One common source of user frustration is when a website’s layout shifts unexpectedly during use. If you’ve ever accidentally clicked on something because it moved as another element loaded, you’ve experienced the issue that the Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) metric aims to address.

A good CLS score is 0.1 or lower, while anything above 0.25 could indicate potential problems. This score is calculated by measuring how much of the screen area changes due to unexpected shifts and how far those elements move.

Common culprits of CLS issues include images and page elements without defined dimensions, image ads and iFrames, third-party scripts, and animations. These are good starting points for CLS optimization. Reducing layout shifts can significantly enhance user experience, making it more likely that users will complete important actions on your site.

Prioritizing What To Do Next

While the fixes for core web vitals typically require developer resources, the PageSpeed Insights tool itself makes it very clear what needs to be addressed to improve performance - not just in the 3 core web vitals above, but across a host of other metrics as well:

Depending on your Pagespeed Insights results, the list of optimizations might be extensive. To help you prioritize, consider these key factors:

• Low-Hanging Fruit - Identify quick fixes that can significantly improve user engagement without demanding excessive time or resources.

• What Does The Data Say?: Analyze which pages on your site have the fewest or simplest issues to resolve. Conducting an inventory of your key pages can help you direct your optimization efforts more effectively.

• What Is The Purpose Of Your Website: Focus your time based on your website’s primary function. For example, if your site is informational, prioritize improvements that impact LCP. For a retail site, enhancing CLS might be more important.

As a business owner or marketer, it’s easy for you to run this test, and then hand these results over to your web developer to work on optimizations that improve the responsiveness of your site, help your SEO rankings, and win back user engagement that will ultimately lead to more sales and signups.

Not Sure Where to Start?

Optimizing core web vitals and site speed is just one piece of the puzzle. Workshop Digital is here to elevate your user engagement through our full suite of technical and local SEO services, along with strategic keyword and content development through ongoing SEO support.

If your core web vitals aren't up to par, contact us for a free consultation. Let’s get your site in top shape and start attracting more clients and customers.