When customers call Nextfly with a current website they usually want either a new website or help with their rankings on Google. If their website is old, is slow to load, and has links that don’t work, a new website will help boost their rankings on Google. How? Because Google takes user experience into account when it determines your SEO score. You could spend lots of money working on improving your SEO, but if your website has issues, your money is going to be wasted. Google recently announced that it is expanding its criteria into what makes a good user experience by including Core Web Vitals. Now old cites might not stand a chance to rank if they have some of the issues Google is measuring.

If your old website needs an upgrade, contact Nextfly. We can make your site not only look cool but we can help it load faster and look great on mobile devices. If your website isn’t up to speed, Nextfly can help it compete with the toughest competition.

How Google Measures User Experience

Before Core Web Vitals were announced, Google already measured user experience through a couple of different methods. Specifically, they created 4 criteria they examined on every website.

• Mobile Friendliness – How well does your website function on phones and tablets
• Safe Browsing – warns users when they attempt to navigate to dangerous sites or download dangerous files
• HTTPs Security – How secure is the data between your web browser and a website. HTTPs is encrypted in order to increase the security of data transfer
• Intrusive interstitial guidelines – does your website have popups that are difficult to close or navigate around

Recently, Google announced that it was using these user experience signals to measure user experience, as well as a new group of signals called Core Web Vitals.

What Are Core Web Vitals?

Core Web Vitals are 3 signals that Google measures from a website to further determine user experience. They focus primarily on load times and interactivity with the website.

• LCP – Largest Contentful Paint. This measures how long it takes for the main content on a website to load. The ideal LCP is 2.5 seconds or faster.
• FID – First Input Delay. This measures how fast your page responds to user clicks and activity on your page. This ideal FID is less than 100ms.
• CLS – Cumulative Layout Shift. This measures the visible stability of your site. Do elements of your site move around the screen while the page is loading? If it does, the frequency of this can hurt your CLS score even more.

Let’s use a metaphor here. Your website is like an Olympic diver, striving to get a perfect 10 from the judges (Google). In Olympic diving, you’d be judged on speed, execution, and stability.

Your LCP measurement is your speed score. If you cannot make that first jump off the board in a speedy fashion you’d lose points. Just like if your site is too slow to load initially after you type in the address. You’d lose points in the LCP measurement.

The FID score measures your execution. If you bellyflop on your landing, you have poor execution. If your website is slow to respond to clicks or certain functions on your site don’t work as they should, then you have poor execution. Things like delayed typing, multiple clicks to get a button to work would hurt your FID score.

Finally, the CLS score measures your stability. If you get on the diving board and fall off the side immediately, you’re not very stable. When visitors scroll through your website and elements don’t move with the screen, or items jump around while your site is loading, your site design is not stable and that hurts your CLS score.

How Core Web Vitals Could Impact Your Rankings

If your website is not performing in line with Google’s new Core Web Vitals criteria, you’ll soon notice a drop in rankings and maybe even visitors. Google may add labels in search results to alert users to good page experiences. Currently, many websites would not meet the standards Google is setting. As your competition’s websites improve to meet Google’s user experience demands, if you choose not to upgrade, Google will rank you lower than your competition. It’s important to stay on top of website maintenance, updates, and data limits to keep your site running efficiently (and keep Google happy).

Nextfly Can Help You Score Better On Core Web Vitals

If your site is slow to load, is slow to respond, and elements of your website shuffle around as it loads, then it’s time for an upgrade. Even if these aren’t your top priorities, your rankings could be suffering because your site doesn’t look good on phones or you didn’t renew your HTTPs this year. Whatever the reason, Nextfly can help. We can help you with site design, content creation, web hosting, and much more than can get you a perfect 10 from Google for their Core Web Vitals criteria. Call Nextfly today to learn more about upgrading your website.