Businessman checking pagespeed on mobile device
Core Web Vitals (CWV) measures the performance of your website from a users perspective. It considers three aspects that impact user experience:

  1. How fast the page loads
  2. How quickly the user can interact with your website
  3. How stable the page remains (or do some elements jump around, causing you to click on a wrong button?)

Why Are Core Web Vitals Important?

Core Web Vitals are important for two primary reasons:

  1. It improves user experience
  2. Google is using it to determine if your website gets found

User Experience

Page load speed is the number one driver of user experience. According to Google, longer load times severely affect bounce rate. Bounce rate measures the number of times users find your website and then “bounce” after looking at just one page. High bounce rate coupled with a low time on the page suggests that users had a bad experience. Here are Google’s stats:

  • If page load time increases from 1 second to 3 seconds, bounce rate increases 32%
  • If page load time increases from 1 second to 6 seconds, bounce rate increases by 106%

On the more optimistic side, websites with higher speed (and user experience) attract and retain more visitors, which in turn increases leads, contract wins, and revenues.

CWV and Search Engine Optimization

Core Web Vitals were introduced by Google in May 2020. They are supplemental metrics to four existing metrics used by Google to determine how a website performs.

Website Design to Play Bigger Role in SEO Latest from Google using Core Web Vitals for page experience ranking
These seven characteristics are used to determine where a website ranks in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). Simplistically, when you “Google” a topic, the search engine reveals the best websites available based on relevance and website performance. Ignoring these website performance measures will cause your website to be relegated away from page one of a search.

Why are CWV Important for Government Contractors?

82% of Federal decision-makers rated search engine results and corporate websites as their top-rated sources for research, according to studies by Market Connections.

Government buyers, contracting officers, and other decision-makers are looking for information long before discussing their contracts with business development. If your website is underperforming—doesn’t load or is difficult to use—they will move along. An underperforming website means you lose the opportunity to impart valuable information on your website and, moreover, will leave a poor taste concerning your brand.

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Core Web Vitals Descriptions

Diving deeper into the specifics, here is a summary of the three Core Web Vitals and how they are used:

CWV Description Is A Measure Of
LCP - Largest Contentful Paint Measures the time to load the largest element of content (typically an image video or large block of text) Page Loading Time
FID - First Input Delay Time from first interaction (i.e., click on a link) to the time when the browser can respond Interactivity
CLS - Cumulative Layout Shift The sum of all unexpected element shifts as you view the page (potentially causing your to click on the wrong link—which is very annoying) Visual Stability

And here are the recommended benchmarks from Google:

Good Needs Improvement Poor
LCP <=2.5s <=4s >4s
FID <=100ms <=300ms >300ms
CLS <=0.1 <=0.25 >0.25

How To Fix Your Website

Fixes can range from reducing image file sizes to optimizing code. It depends on the current status of your website. In some cases, it may be quicker and less expensive to renew your website altogether. Unlike other search engine optimization methodologies, Core Web Vitals speaks to the fundamental design and build of the website itself. The starting point is to run a diagnostic check-up using Google’s PageSpeed Insights (PSI): https://pagespeed.web.dev/. Add your website URL to the tool and see your results in a minute or two. If this all seems overwhelming, let us help. We can run a free website review for you and interpret the results.

Summary

  • Website speed matters—it improves user experience and reduces bounce rates
  • Google is using Core Web Vitals as an input to their search engine results
  • Fixing the Core Web Vitals for your site can be simple or complex, depending on your current performance
  • You can check your website performance at https://pagespeed.web.dev/
  • Or we can run a free website review for you

Ocean 5 Builds Outstanding Websites for Business

Ocean 5 Strategies creates websites that are fully customized, technically advanced, responsive (mobile-friendly), professionally designed, and provide an outstanding user experience. We use Growth Driven Design to build a digital platform for accelerated lead generation, including great CWV scores throughout the continuous improvement phase.