When Google makes a major update to their algorithm, it’s worth paying attention. They typically generate 500 to 600 small changes to their proprietary formula each year, but major updates are far less common. 

We expect to see them start rolling out the changes this month.

Why does this matter?  

When it comes to searches, Google is on top. There are 5.6 billion Google searches every day, with more than 246 million unique US visitors. That’s 75 percent of the US population!

Those are intimidatingly large numbers. But Google doesn’t discriminate against small shops—any business can leverage smart website design, keywords, and social media to be competitive (more on this in a later post). 

But first, a disclaimer

Google holds their cards close to their chest. From time to time, Google representatives comment on upcoming changes or details are “leaked” to the public. As an industry, we won’t really know exactly what changes are made until Google makes them and we reverse engineer rankings. But the danger in not preparing for this change now is that your website’s ranking will first start to slip and then slowly sink, losing all that great momentum you’ve been building.  

Core Web Values

Core Web Values is what Google’s calling their latest update. It’s a set of three metrics that attempt to quantify a user’s page experience, specifically how fast and how well an individual web page loads. 

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) is how long it takes for the largest content element on a page—like an image or video—takes to load. The highest ranked pages will have a LCP of 2.5 seconds or faster. 

How can you improve your LCP? The biggest drag on LCP is images that aren’t optimized. You want clear, sharp, beautiful images (not tiny or pixelated photos), but you also want them to be compressed so they don’t delay your LCP. 

First Input Delay (FID) is how long it takes for a browser to respond to an interaction, such as clicking on a button or link. Your goal is 100 milliseconds or less.

The main offender of FID is complex code, including JavaScript. Browsers typically can’t respond to interactions while it’s loading JavaScript. Removing unused scripts can improve the FID. 

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) is the visual stability of a page as it loads. One of the most irritating web experiences is clicking on a link and then the page shifts as it loads, causing you to click on the wrong link, ad, or nothing at all. For the best ranking, your CLS should be less than 0.1. 

The CLS isn’t technically about speed, but about how fast it feels. A page that jumps around as different images, headers, buttons, and ads load feels like it’s taking longer to load than it is. Images are most often the culprit for this jerkiness. Make your images have the proper height and width attributes or with responsive images, use the same aspect ratio. This way the browser holds a place for the image to load, while the text comes in. This smooths out the page, giving users a stronger sense of stability. 

How well do you stack up?

The Core Web Values is in addition to all the other elements that Google considers in a page’s ranking—security, navigation, responsiveness, and content are still as important as ever. 

We’ve pulled together an easy checklist you can use to evaluate how well your website functions and where you need to focus more energy. Get it here.