If you are familiar with the way search engines work on the backend, then this is great news. Google is all about UX (User Experience) now. Its new algorithm will rank your website based on how easy your audience can interact and get what they need on your pages. It also takes in consideration speed, responsiveness, and visual stability on all of the pages inside your website.
Your website has to meet new Google's search criteria, otherwise your site will start to loose positions on search results, and we know that it is all about real estate. If your website is not ranking high enough, you will be losing traffic, and ultimately potential clients.
Less than 15% of websites are optimized to "pass the Google test", and Google's own research shows that 24% of users are less likely to abandon sites that meet the thresholds of Core Web Vitals.
Here is what Google says:
The page experience signal measures aspects of how users perceive the experience of interacting with a web page. Optimizing for these factors makes the web more delightful for users across all web browsers and surfaces, and helps sites evolve towards user expectations on mobile. We believe this will contribute to business success on the web as users grow more engaged and can transact with less friction.
This is how Google measure your website
Google measures the Web Core Vitals based on three main factors.
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): is the total time it takes for the main content to load on a page.
Google indicates that an optimal LCP measurement is 2.5 seconds or faster. - First Input Delay (FID): The time it takes for a page to become interactive.
This should take no longer than 100 milliseconds. - Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): How much visual page content shifts throughout the loading process.
An ideal measurement is less than 0.1 seconds.