User experience is crucial for websites. It is also inevitable for search engine rankings and to unlock many opportunities. If the website is loading slowly and the user finds it difficult to navigate quickly, it can frustrate the visitor. Also, it is important to have consistency in design, page loading speed, and others across different devices. All these significantly affect the performance of the page. The factors assessing all these are called Core Web Vitals.
This blog will focus on page speed optimization strategies to enhance core web vitals.
What are Core Web Vitals?
Core Web Vitals is the metrics that analyze user experiences. The factors that matter here are the speed incurred in page loading, and the stability of visuals in different sites. Understanding and analyzing core web vitals allows site owners to improve their user experience.
Core Web Vitals – Key Metrics
Google selected three metrics, referred to as the Core Web Vitals, to evaluate the crucial facets of the user experience.
Largest Contentful Paint, or LCP, is a metric that counts how long it takes for the most significant content to appear on the screen. A high grade makes visitors believe that the website loads quickly.
First Input Delay, or FID, determines how long a site takes to respond. When the response is quick, it shows the website is highly responsive.
Cumulative Layout Shift, or CLS, is the metric that prioritizes visual stability. It includes the different factors like slow-loading advertisements or other elements that affect the visual strength of the website.
Although the Page Experience update is imminent, its initial effects may be insignificant. According to Danny Sullivan, the head of Google, it will be implemented gradually and may gain significance over time. The smallest improvement to user experience can significantly impact the functionality and positioning of your website.
How Should Core Web Vitals Be Optimized for eCommerce Websites?
Your basic web vitals may need to perform better for various reasons. Examples include websites that are not mobile-friendly, excessive JavaScript, large-size media, the execution of extra tasks through integrated Software, needless pop-ups, CSS files, etc.
Here are a few pointers to assist you in addressing problems with the eCommerce website’s basic functionality and page experience!
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Preload Critical Resources
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), one of the three fundamental web vitals, is a critical metric that gauges a website’s loading speed.
How quickly the significant on-page components load and begin to appear on the folds serves as the primary metric in this. You can analyze the individual page in Chrome DevTools to find out the LCP element on your page. Once you identify the LCP element on your page, you can quickly determine how long it takes for the page to load by using the Chrome DevTools’ Performance tab. You can preload your browser and let it run for a while to increase the speed at which your LCP element loads.
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Minimize JavaScript (JS) Execution Time
Google’s Core Web Vitals (CWV) evaluates the load responsiveness of your web pages using First Delay Input (FID). Your FID score must be under 100 milliseconds for you to deliver a “good” user experience based on Google’s performance range, and to get this number, you should optimize your JavaScript execution. By speeding up JavaScript, you also speed up the time it takes for the website to load in the browser.
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Use Lazy Loading
Delaying the download of a page’s resource until it is required is known as lazy loading. Data is conserved, and network congestion for important resources is decreased. If your eCommerce site has a lot of product photos, demo videos, animations, or other large multimedia material, lazy loading is strongly advised. Although lazy loading is not required, customers notice a considerable increase in LCP scores following its deployment. When a visitor scrolls down the page, lazy loading enables images to load at the appropriate time without slowing down the website’s loading time. Lazy loading assists you in getting the highest LCP score in this method.
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Reduce Each Picture
The vast media on your website could be another cause of its delayed processing. Since you must demonstrate the product to your customers, eCommerce sites typically feature more photographs than others. There are also banner, hero, and carousel images in addition to the product photos. If not compressed, these drag down the loading time of your website. In addition, if the photographs are unnecessary for the website, you should remove them.
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Test the Third-party Software
Regarding your eCommerce website’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO), core web vitals are not the only things you need to be concerned about.
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Make Sure Your Website is Mobile-friendly
You must design your website mobile-friendly because most clients will access your eCommerce business using a mobile device. Your website must load quickly on mobile devices, be simple to use and react quickly to user input.
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Make Sure Your Website is Secure to Visit
Google Webmaster evaluates the websites to look for security flaws. The hosting of a website, phishing links, false or manufactured material, malware, and other types of factors can all cause security problems that could endanger your clients.
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Change HTTP to HTTPS
Switching from HTTP to HTTPS is another approach to give your clients secure browsing. Because HTTPS offers your website data integrity, authentication, and encryption, Google always supports it. Additionally, this will safeguard customer information, payment information, and your company’s total data.
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Eliminate Bothersome Interludes
These pop-ups on your website can annoy users because they obscure the page’s primary content. As a result, the site should be free of any intrusive interstitials. This will assist you with enhancing all of the fundamental web functions, particularly CLS.
10. Visually Stabilize the Design of Your Website
The web page’s layout can occasionally be unstable due to website design. Because of this, the elements on the website abruptly change places, which leaves the customer with a negative impression. Prioritize loading the content clients need most to increase visual stability. For instance, since the viewer will see the banner and other material before the items at the bottom of the webpage, they should be loaded later.
Final Thoughts
The main goals of web vitals are to enhance the user experience by increasing content loading speed, website interaction, and visual stability. You must break up lengthy code chunks, eliminate cumbersome JavaScript, and compress every image on the website to optimize these. Further, inspect your website and consider other site performance variables regularly. This includes maintaining security, evaluating whether your website is mobile-friendly, and reducing the number of unwanted pop-up ads.