Detroit User Experience and Core Web Vitals
October 29th, 2020 by Bob OttawayDetroit User Experience and Core Web Vitals
Quick Read
Google recently announced that its next update will include new ranking factors called Core Web Vitals. These include:
- Site Speed
- Site Responsiveness
- Site Visual Stability
- Minimizing Number of Elements
- Size of Files Used on a Web Page
- Minification
What are Core Web Vitals?
Core Web Vitals take the design of a website into consideration when ranking. More specifically, they measure the user experience. As people’s online behaviors shift, and technology constantly shifts to meet the intentions of users, search engines create and adjust protocols that determine which sites are found on page one.Google’s Core Web Vitals are made up of the following:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): This measures the overall speed that a webpage loads from the user’s perspective.
- First Input Delay (FID): This measures the site’s responsiveness and user experience of first-page interaction.
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): This measures the visual stability of the page, or how much the page shifts as it loads.
Google’s Focus On User Experience (UX)
While Google is constantly changing its search algorithm to quickly provide users with high-quality, relevant content, it also is focused on making sure users have the best experience with these sites. According to the update to Google’s guidelines for website design, the largest image or block of text, when initially rendered, should load in 2.5 seconds or less to be valued as a “good” LCP score. Some of the items considered for LCP include:- Images
- Videos
- Background Images
- Block-level Elements (HTML, CSS)
Google is also tightening down on:
- Mobile Friendliness: How easy websites are to navigate on mobile devices. This also includes the readability of content and how clickable links and other on-page elements are.
- Safe Browsing: This helps to ensure the site is safe and free from malware, phishing, hacked content or other issues. Google wants to make sure users can safely browse the internet.
- HTTPS: It’s recommended that websites use HTTPS, another security feature that helps to maintain a secure connection.
- Non-Intrusive Interstitials: Making sure that users can access all elements on-page is another way Google can provide, high-quality, relevant and accessible information to users.
- Page speed
- Visual design
- Alt text (especially for people who are visually impaired)
- Easy-to-use navigation
How to Create a Google-Friendly Website
When trying to create a great site that will meet all of the new requirements that have been set, less is always more. Aim for a minimalistic design that will be lightweight and very user friendly. If you’re trying to get your site up to Google’s website design standards, look at the following:- Photos: Personalize them. If you’re a Detroit business, show them the local scene.
- Videos
- White space
- Design Elements
- Unnecessary Plugins
- Redirects
- What does this element add to the webpage? Does it serve an essential purpose?
- What is the size of this file? Can I compress it for my needs?
- As a new website user, could I benefit from this element, or is it better to move to a less-weighty page?
- JavaScript Minifier
- Minify
- Autoptimize
- Fast Velocity