If you are a person operating an e-commerce website, then you understand that it is important for your e-commerce website to rank well in search engine results and, through this, get more customers to your online store. And probably you didn’t know that the quality of user experience of your website can also influence your SEO and conversions?
In this particular blog post, we are going to discuss Core Web Vitals, which is a group of metrics used to measure the speed, interactivity, and visual stability of a webpage. More than that, we are going to demonstrate how better performance of these metrics can make your e-commerce site rank higher in Google, raise customer satisfaction, and maximise sales.
How Core Web Vitals Benefit SEO E-commerce
If you own an e-commerce website, you have a clear understanding of how imperative search engine rankings and an increased number of customers’ traffic to your virtual store are. But did you know that the Quality of User Experience of your Website can also affect SEO and conversions?
We will also demonstrate for you how improving these metrics can make your e-commerce website rank high on Google, increase customer satisfaction, and increase sales.
What Are Core Web Vitals?
Core Web Vitals are a part of the factors that Google uses to determine the page experience of a website. Page experience is the way users experience a web page apart from valuable information.
Core Web Vitals includes three metrics that are based on the experience of your site by users as they load, interact, and are stable. They are:
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP):
How long does your page to get the primary content to load? Shoot for less than 2.5 seconds for a good user experience
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS):
The rate of unpredictable shifting of your page’s layout while it is loading. If there is a Strive for less than 0.1, then it will have to have a good user experience.
| Metric | SEO Ranking ↑ | Bounce Rate ↓ | Conversions ↑ | Satisfaction ↑ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LCP | 25% | 30% | 20% | 15% |
| FID | 20% | 25% | 25% | 20% |
| CLS | 10% | 35% | 15% | 30% |
What are Core Web Vitals, and why are they important for E-commerce SEO?
Google has announced some updates on Core Web Vitals, whereby they will be a part of the page experience ranking factor, meaning they will influence how your website is ranked in Google. This implies that if your site has low core web vitals, your site may be stripped of the position it was holding on the search engine against a competitor that has better core web vitals.
However, good Core Web Vitals are not only good for having great rankings on Google. Making improvements in these metrics will also benefit your e-commerce website in many ways, like:
Increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty
When your website loads fast and responds quickly to their requests as well as is stable, your customers will have a better impression of your brand and your products. They will trust you more and come back to you, and buy from you.
Bounce rate and dwell time
If your website is slow and unresponsive, or unstable, then customers will get frustrated and they will get out of your website. They will also not stay long on your website and see fewer pages. When your Core Web Vitals are improved, you can lower the bounce rate, extend the dwell time of your visitors, thus making Google think that your site is important.
Boosting conversions and sales
If your website is adjusted according to Core Web Vitals, you can provide a good shopping experience for your clients. You can remove all the delays or interruptions that may hinder them from making their purchase. You can also build their confidence and trust in your products and services. This may increase the number of your e-commerce website’s conversions and sales.
The Way to Improve Your Core Web Vitals for Your E-commerce Website
Boosting your Core Web Vitals for your e-commerce site would not be impossible, but it may require some technical work and optimization. Below are some of the tips and best practices that you can use to enhance your Core Web Vitals:
Optimize your images
Images are usually the largest content component on a page, and they could affect your LCP and CLS. You should optimize images by compressing them, resizing, using responsive images, and using the modern formats for images like WebP or AVIF. You should also apply lazy loading, which implies that images should load only if they are in the viewport of a user.
Minify and compress your code
Your LCP and FID can also be affected by your code, namely HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. You should shrink and compress your code by eliminating the unnecessary or redundant characters, spaces, comments, or lines. In addition, you should also use tools like G-Zip or Brotli and compress your code files.
Implement a content delivery network (CDN)
CDN is a network of servers that deliver the content you have on your website to the users, depending on their geographical locations. This can save the time of your website loading and improve your LCP and FID. You should choose a CDN that maintains the functionality of your site and provides outstanding speed and stability.
Avoid layout shifts
Layout shifts are when the elements on a page are shifting or resizing while the page is loading. This can impact your CLS and bring a poor user experience. You should avoid layout shifts by ensuring that your elements are defined in terms of their sizes and positions, the use of CSS grid or flex box to handle the layout, and the avoidance of the use of new content to insert content on top of others.
Conclusion
Core Web Vitals are a group of metrics that determine the user experience of a webpage. They are very essential for SEO e-commerce because they can help your business have a better ranking on Google, increase customer satisfaction, and also increase sales. You can optimize your Core Web Vitals through image, code, network, and layout improvements.
If you are genuinely interested in optimising your core web vitals for an e-commerce website. We are an e-commerce web Development Company dealing with headless e-commerce development for any e-commerce business. We can also support you with Core Web Vitals optimization of your site and creating and deploying your e-commerce applications. With our level of expertise and experience of work, we are capable of doing any type of project with high-quality results.
