Core Web Vitals Tips: Optimize Your Site Before It Flatlines

Ever feel like your website is stuck in quicksand, getting slower and slower? The culprit might be your Core Web Vitals. These Google-driven metrics can make or break your site’s ranking, and if you’re not on top of them, your website could be facing a slow death.
But don’t worry—I’m here to provide some life-saving core web vitals tips to help you resuscitate your site’s performance.

What are Core Web Vitals?

Core Web Vitals are Google’s way of measuring the health of your website. Think of them as the vital signs of your site’s user experience.
If your site performs well in these areas, it’s more likely to rank higher.
Here’s what you should monitor:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): How long does it take for the biggest element on your page to load? The slower it is, the more your users will yawn.
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): Ever had the content on a page jump around while it loads? That’s CLS. It’s like trying to sit on a chair while someone keeps pulling it out from under you. Annoying, right?
• First Input Delay (FID): FID was among us all until recently, and although its not longer relevant, I’ve decided to mention it.
  FID measures how long it takes for your site to react to a user interaction. If you’ve ever clicked a button on a site and waited an eternity for something to happen, that’s FID in action (or inaction). *On March 12, 2024, FID was replaced by INP as a Core Web Vital.
• Interaction to Next Paint (INP): Is a metric that replaced FID. It measures interactivity. To provide a good user experience, pages should have a INP of 200 milliseconds or less.

How is INP different from First Input Delay (FID)?

INP is the successor metric to First Input Delay (FID). While both are responsiveness metrics, FID only measured the input delay of the first interaction on a page. INP improves on FID by observing all interactions on a page, beginning from the input delay, to the time it takes to run event handlers, and finally up until the browser has painted the next frame.

These differences mean that both INP and FID are different types of responsiveness metrics. Where FID was a load responsiveness metric designed to assess the page’s first impression on the user, INP is a more reliable indicator of overall responsiveness, regardless of when in the life of a page interactions occur.

https://web.dev/articles/inp#inp-vs-fid

Meet Interaction to Next Paint (INP): The New Kid on the Block

Just when you thought you had a handle on the big three—Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)—Google decided to introduce a new player to the team: Interaction to Next Paint (INP).
If you’re asking, “What fresh challenge is this?” don’t worry. INP is just another step in making sure your website’s user experience is as smooth as butter.

What is INP?

Interaction to Next Paint (INP) measures how long it takes for a website to react to the user’s most important interactions, such as clicking a button or typing in a form.
While FID focused on the delay before your site begins responding, INP tracks the time until the response is fully rendered on the screen.

In short, INP is like checking how fast your site really gets things done, not just how quickly it starts working.
To provide a good user experience, pages should have a INP of 200 milliseconds or less.

Why is INP Important?

Let’s be honest—no one likes waiting. If users click on something and nothing happens (or happens very slowly), they’re likely to bounce off your site faster than a trampoline. INP dives deeper into the user interaction experience by ensuring the site isn’t just reacting quickly but completing the interaction swiftly and smoothly.

A high INP means users are left waiting for visual feedback, and that’s a surefire way to frustrate them. Google is prioritizing INP because, at the end of the day, a fast response isn’t worth much if the actual result doesn’t show up promptly.

How to Measure INP?

Google’s PageSpeed Insights and Chrome DevTools are your go-to tools for tracking INP. You’ll find INP in much the same way you monitor other Core Web Vitals, and you’ll want to aim for an INP score of less than 200ms for optimal performance.
Anything higher, and it’s time to start trimming the fat from your JavaScript.

How to Optimize for INP

You’ll be happy to know that many of the same strategies used to improve FID will also help INP. Here are a few additional tweaks you can make to get INP in top shape:

• Reduce Long Tasks: A lot of INP issues arise from long-running JavaScript tasks that prevent your site from rendering the next paint. Break these tasks up into smaller, more manageable chunks using requestIdleCallback or setTimeout. By deferring less urgent tasks, you ensure your site responds quickly to user interactions.
• Prioritize Main Thread Work: The main thread is where most of your site’s interactivity magic happens. If it’s overloaded with tasks (like complex scripts), INP will suffer. Use the Chrome DevTools Performance Panel to identify and optimize heavy tasks clogging the main thread.
• Cut Down on JavaScript Bloat: Excessive or poorly optimized JavaScript is a common cause of slow interactions. Audit your site’s JavaScript regularly to see which scripts are slowing down interactivity and eliminate or optimize them.
• Keep Third-Party Code in Check: Third-party scripts (like ads, analytics, or social media embeds) can slow your site down significantly. Asynchronously loading them or using tools like Google Tag Manager to minimize their impact ensures they don’t hog resources needed for interactivity.

Wrapping up on Interaction to Next Paint (INP)

Interaction to Next Paint (INP) is Google’s way of making sure that users don’t just get a fast start to their interactions, but that those interactions finish quickly too. By reducing JavaScript bloat, breaking down long tasks, and keeping third-party scripts in check, you can ensure your site remains responsive from click to completion.

Why You Need to Care About Core Web Vitals?

If you’re serious about ranking well, improving these metrics isn’t just a nice-to-have—it’s paramount. Not only do they affect your SEO, but they also play a huge role in user experience. Google’s algorithm is kind of like a stern judge. If your website doesn’t perform well in these areas, you’ll be benched while your competitors get all the traffic.
That being said, CWV are only one of many ranking factors. If all else being equal (which is practically an impossibility) the website with passing CWV will take the lead on the SERP.

Top Core Web Vitals Tips to Boost Your Site’s Performance

1. Optimize Your Hosting Provider

Your web hosting provider is like the foundation of your house—if it’s weak, everything else crumbles. Ensure your hosting provider offers low latency, high speed, and is optimized for WordPress (if that’s your platform of choice). This will have an instant impact on your LCP and overall page speed.
You can read more about three best WordPress hosting providers in this article.

Pro Tip: Use Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) to store cached versions of your site closer to your visitors. It’s like delivering pizza from the next street instead of across town. The shorter the distance, the faster the delivery.

2. Minimize JavaScript (JS) Execution

JavaScript is awesome—until it’s not. Too much JS can slow down your site, dragging down your First Input Delay (FID). Every additional script that runs adds more time before a user can interact with the page.

How to Fix It: Defer non-critical JavaScript or better yet, remove unnecessary scripts altogether. When in doubt, let plugins like WP Rocket or Perfmatters do the heavy lifting for you.

3. Lazy-Load Images and Videos

Ah, images and videos—the shiny stuff that makes your site look great but loads slower. Here’s the deal: you don’t need to load all the media on your site the moment someone lands on the page.

Implement lazy loading, which only loads images and videos as the user scrolls down. This will help improve both LCP and CLS metrics.

Pro Tip: Here’s how you can do it:

<img loading="lazy" src="image.jpg" alt="example image">

If you are using WordPress CMS, you can use a tool like EWWW IO for it.

Use Proper Dimensions for Images

Speaking of images, always define the width and height attributes. This helps the browser allocate the right space on the page even before the image fully loads, minimizing those frustrating layout shifts (CLS).

5. Cache Like a Pro

Caching is like having a cheat sheet during an exam. It stores copies of your web pages in a user’s browser, so when they come back, everything loads faster.

Make sure your site uses server-side caching and browser caching effectively. Caching tools like W3 Total Cache can handle most of this for you, but make sure the settings are optimized. (Or contact us at WPservice.pro to do it for you).

6. Reduce Server Response Time (TTFB)

Time To First Byte (TTFB) is the time your browser takes to get the first byte of data from your server. A sluggish server can send this time through the roof, tanking your LCP in the process.

Switch to a faster hosting plan or use a CDN to serve content more quickly. If your TTFB is dragging, it might be time to have a heart-to-heart with your hosting provider.

7. Prioritize Visible Content

Want to impress your visitors and Google? Focus on loading the most important content first—above the fold. This means making sure the stuff your users see first (without scrolling) loads quickly. Anything below the fold can wait a bit longer.

This technique significantly improves LCP, especially when paired with lazy loading.

8. Eliminate Render-Blocking Resources

Your website can get hung up if there are render-blocking CSS and JavaScript files that load before the page content does. Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to identify these bottlenecks and defer their loading.

Example: Use async or defer attributes in your scripts.

<script src="script.js" defer></script>

9. Use WebP Instead of JPEGs or PNGs

JPEGs and PNGs are so last decade. WebP is the modern alternative, offering better compression without sacrificing quality. Switching your site’s images to WebP can speed up your load times drastically, improving your LCP score.

Pro Tip: Read this article about the three best image optimization plugins

Conclusion: Don’t Let Your Core Web Vitals Flatline!

Improving your Core Web Vitals (INP included) might seem like tackling a technical headache, but it’s a necessity if you want your website to thrive. A site that’s slow, unresponsive, or jittery will frustrate users and plummet down the search rankings. By optimizing your hosting, lazy-loading media, taming JavaScript, and focusing on stable layouts, you’ll improve user experience and give your SEO the boost it needs.

In short, take the time to fine-tune these core metrics now, and you’ll keep your site’s pulse strong, delivering both user satisfaction and search engine love. Remember, it’s not just about passing Google’s test—it’s about making sure your users stick around long enough to engage with your content.
And that’s where the real magic happens.

Optimizing your Core Web Vitals may not sound like the most thrilling task, but trust me, your bottom line will thank you. Google is watching, and now you’re armed with the tips to make your site faster, more stable, and user-friendly.

Take a deep breath, apply these core web vitals tips, and watch your site’s performance skyrocket!

Key Takeaways:

• Core Web Vitals are critical metrics for user experience and SEO.
• Speed matters—optimize hosting, lazy-load images, and use WebP.
• Layout stability is a key factor, so avoid content shifts at all costs.
• JavaScript can be a performance killer—minimize and optimize it.