How WordPress Core Web Vitals Affect SEO and Website Speed: A Guide for Site Owners

Running a website on WordPress is not about setting it up and letting it run. It’s more of a balanced art. With Complex ads setups, quality graphics, feature-rich plugins, and heavy content, maintaining good website performance could be challenging. Ignoring it means you are also hurting WordPress Core Web Vitals optimization.

If you are struggling to maintain a good Core Web Vital score, your website may face issues in search rankings, user experience, and overall interaction.

Core Web Vitals (CWVs) are important metrics that determine your rankings. But you don’t have to strip away all the features to achieve a good CWV.

If eliminating ads, plugins, or visuals is not an option, then what’s the solution?

Worry not! You can enhance your website’s performance with the right optimization strategies, without compromising on essential features.

Let’s now deep dive into Core Web Vitals insights and get ready to step up your site.

What are WordPress Core Web Vitals?

Core Web Vitals in WordPress are Google’s metrics to evaluate how consumers feel about your website by inspecting aspects such as speed, mobile-friendliness, safe browsing, and intrusive interstitial guidelines.

Insight!

The full names for all three metrics are:

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), Interaction to Next Paint (INP) and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS).

Additionally, by analysing the values of each metric, you get to know the real world user experience & interaction with the website.

Each metric is assigned some minimum value. A website should stay within that to meet Google’s standards of an optimal performing site.

Note: To learn more on WordPress updates, have a look here.

Thus, these aspects are something developers cannot ignore even if they want to! Overlooking these means you are also compromising on your website’s ranking and users’ satisfaction. That won’t sound fair, does it?

So, let’s fix all of your problems with one powerful solution, i.e. Optimizing WordPress sites for Core Web Vitals.

What Are the Roles of LCP, FID, and CLS?

Improving LCP, FID, CLS in WordPress websites escalates your web presence, helping you to achieve peak functioning.

• LCP, Largest Contentful Paint measures the load speed and calculates the largest content’s loading speed on the web page.

• FID, First Input Delay tracks interactivity, which is related to the response time for the first request of the user just after they land on the webpage, essentially compute the duration a page takes to become interactive.

• CLS, Cumulative Layout Shift evaluates page stability after unexpected layout shifts and how much time content takes to settle for a seamless viewing experience.

Important Note:

As of March 2024, FID is no longer a Core Web Vital, it is replaced by Interaction to the Next Paint (INP). It measures website’ latency of all interactions done by users and determine its responsiveness.

However, FID still plays a crucial role in assessing the first-time user’s interactions and directly influence rankings. Therefore, many WordPress development companies still focuses on improving FID along with other Core Web Vitals.

Does Core Web Vitals affect SEO?

Yes, SEO can be influenced with Core Web Vitals. Google assesses page experience with many factors such as Core Web Vitals, mobile-friendliness, safe browsing, HTTPS security, and the absence of intrusive interstitials.

Among these, Core Web Vitals is one of the most crucial. Optimizing CWVs result in enhancing WordPress user experience and boost your site’s search rankings.

In short, these are key considerations for Google’s ranking algorithm.

Also, many analytic tools such as PageSpeed Insights and Google Search Console are used for page inspection. They easily tell you how well the pages are performing.

Important Note: Content quality and relevancy are still more important than page experience for determining ranking. However, when your competitors are on the same level, page experience decides who will rank higher.

Most Important Core Web Vitals for WordPress Sites

As discussed earlier, LCP, FID, and CLS in WordPress are the crucial ranking factors. Many of the popular brands polished their digital metrics by fixing these metrics. Hold your horses until we explain how they did it in our upcoming series. Before that, let’s know more about CWV’s three pillars.

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

The time taken to load & display the largest content element on your web page, be it an image, a video or any visual is determined by Largest Contentful Paint.

Importance of LCP

• Google considers it as a key ranking factor for SEO.

• Good LCP supports better user experience on your website.

First Input Delay (FID)

When the user first interacts with your platform and the time it responds to them is the measure of First Input Delay or FID.

Interaction to Next Paint (INP)

Interaction to Next Paint or INP is the replacement of First Input Delay that measures the time it takes for the interface to respond to users’ requests. It includes interactions done by clicking, keyboard use, form filling, and tapping on a button.

Likewise, the goal of interaction to next paint in Core Web Vitals is to understand how quickly a page becomes responsive.

Importance of INP

• A Fast INP contributes to a satisfying user experience and a better engagement.

• Supports website ranking as it eliminates delays and negative impressions.

Importance of FID

• Faster FID makes pages more responsive.

• A better FID performance reduces bounce rates.

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

Lastly, let’s talk about CLS in WordPress. It measures the visual stability of the website. Essentially, Cumulative Layout Shift determines how page elements move or shift unexpectedly while loading.

Ever clicked on the wrong button because the page shifted at the last second? Frustrating, right? Optimizing CLS ensures a more stable and seamless browsing experience.

Take ahead your website’s foundation with the top tier WordPress performance optimization services and say goodbye to struggling pages.

Importance of CLS

• Low CLS value mitigates users’ frustration

• A good CLS support smooth navigation, visuals, and layout.

Interesting Stats About LCP, FID, CLS in WordPress

As of a report, WordPress websites have improved their Core Web Vitals rate from 28.31% to 36.44% on mobile devices and from 32.55% to 40.80% on desktop devices. It reflects an increase of +8.13% and +8.25% respectively.

• In the USA, only 23% of the websites have a top score while the rest need WordPress Core Web Vitals Optimization. However, countries with poor network connectivity struggle in reaching the best Core Web Vitals values.

• Cumulative Layout Shift Score is hard to achieve and only 45.9% of origins runs within the ideal value of CLS. Considering the bad network connection and devices as a factor in slow CLS scores.

• Among 1,000 to 10,000 websites, 98.7% of desktop sites have a good First Input Delay (FID) score, whereas only 87.5% of mobile sites meet a good value.

Best Core Web Vitals Plugins to Enhance Your Website UX?

Some WordPress plugins address these performance metrics and help in improving LCP, FID, CLS in WordPress.

NitroPack

Best used for: All in one automatic page enhancement

Features: built-in CDN, image optimization, advanced caching

WP Rocket

Best used for: Complete WordPress speed optimization

Features: database management & optimising, preload functionality, lazy loading

Autoptimize

Best used for: Reducing render blocking resources

Features: Optimizes Google Fonts, and enables lazy loading, improves load speed of images

WP Super Cache

Best used for: Beginner friendly WordPress optimization

Features: manages server load, assists in CDN integration

Lazy Load by WP Rocket

Best used for: Optimizes media loading

Features: work on visuals/ graphic loading speed

Expert WordPress Core Web Vitals Optimization Services

A right team can make all the difference if you face challenges in enhancing user experience on WordPress.

BluEnt understands the foundation of website designing and incorporates the best practices to optimize your site’s speed and overall Core Web Vital score.

We know that the majority of website owners often struggle in WordPress Core Web Vitals optimization due to various technical and performance-based problems.

Do you want faster loading times, an enhanced user experience, and higher search rankings?

With our top-tier WordPress Web Performance Consultants you can analyze where your website is lagging. We go beyond Core Web Vitals optimization. In addition, our WordPress design services build your website from the scratch, ensuring precision in every inch.

Whether you are looking for a website design company or improving LCP, FID, CLS in WordPress, our team guarantees a swift, smart, and responsive website.

Steer your growth with BluEnt’s developers! Contact us Today!

The Bottom Line

WordPress Core Web Vitals are important for every website optimization. Achieving a good CWV score seems like an impossible task for platforms with rich media, advertisements, and heavy content.

BluEnt, the top website development firm, has a proven record in bringing absolute success to organizations. Our innovative strategies reduce load times, modify stability, and bring top performance even under complex ads and heavy content.

Hold our hand if you are on the go to optimize WordPress sites for Core Web Vitals. No matter the scale of your websites, we have got your back.

Talk to our experts and see how we can help!