TLDR: 40% of the top-performing Dutch e-Commerce players do not meet Google’s new requirements for page experience ranking on desktop. With their February update, Google stresses that web performance and page experience are more important than ever across all devices. LCP, TBT, and CLS: 3 web vitals to improve your web performance.
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Whether you like it or not, your leads, sales, and revenue are highly dependent on Google. Google always tries to give the best result to the user when someone uses their search engine. User experience is vital: the better your website performs, the more Google will like you. Google’s Core Web Vitals have impacted the way we look at website speed. Those who fail to deliver will be left behind and will remain in the shadow of those who beat the game of web performance. Starting from February 2022, Google will tighten the reins even more, as they will bring page experience ranking to desktop. What does this update include? And how can you best approach this latest update? This blog will get you up and running!
Google’s Core Web Vitals: page experience ranking for desktop
In the summer of 2021, Google’s Page Experience launched an algorithm for mobile search and page experience ranking. February’s update for desktop is an extension of this algorithm. Page experience on desktop includes roughly the same ranking signals as 2021’s mobile update. As studies have shown, mobile page load speeds directly impact Google Rankings. With desktop joining the page experience platoon, there is no time to get left behind. Web performance and page experience have become more important than ever before! What you need is speed.
A quick Core Web Vitals 101
So, what exactly are Google’s Core Web Vitals? Which factors determine whether you should join the back of the line or start from pole position? To help you refresh your memory, here is a summary of Google’s 3 benchmarks:
#1: LCP: Largest Contentful Paint (loading)
The largest Contentful Paint (LCP) concerns the loading speed of the page. To be more specific, this factor looks at the largest element being loaded into the screen and exactly how long it takes. For example, a large video or image, but it can also be the first text you see.
#2: CLS: Cumulative Layout Shift (visual stability)
The Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) measures the cumulative, unexpected layout shifts that occur over the entire “lifetime” of a page. An example of such an unexpected shift is when the late loading of an image shifts a button, causing you to misclick.
#3: TBT: Total Blocking Time (interactivity)
The Total Blocking Time (TBT) metric measures the total amount of time between First Contentful Paint (FCP) and Time to Interactive (TTI). FCP indicates how much time (milliseconds) has passed before the first contentful element is displayed on a page. TTI measures how long it takes a page to become fully interactive.
Twinkle100: who is resistant to the new update?
Each year, the Twinkle100 ranks the top e-Commerce players in the Netherlands. At MeasureWorks we continuously rank websites and we match them with the Twinkle100 ranking. Just like Google, we check websites on the Core Web Vitals performance metrics. With some interesting results. Below we have summarized how the top 10 of the Twinkle100 did regarding Google’s new update for desktop. What stands out the most, is that only 3 out of 10 companies meet the new standard for Total Blocking Time.
How to get up to speed? MeasureWorks has the formula to win!
With Google’s February update, web performance and page experience prove to be more important than ever. There is no room for poor grades when attending Google’s performance palaver. What are you waiting for? Time to join the fast lane and outperform your competitors. At MeasureWorks, we approach web performance through our threefold formula – Observe, Control, Boost – to improve user experience, conversion rate, retention rate, and sales. We help you become superior in web performance!
There is no time to lose, get started!
