This post is sponsored by DebugBear. The views expressed in this article are those of the sponsors themselves.
Do you want to improve the performance of your website?
While there are tools to track performance metrics, many lack the functionality needed to accurately collect and utilize website performance data.
So let’s learn more about the key performance indicators you need to analyze to keep your website running at peak performance and help improve your rankings.
You’ll also learn how DebugBear can help you track historical changes, instantly see how changes impact your site’s performance, and gain additional insights that Google can’t provide.
What is core network vitality?
Core Web Vitals (CWV) are performance metrics that use real user experience data to measure your website’s speed, responsiveness, and visual stability.
The following three metrics make up the core web vitality of your website:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) – This measures how long it takes to initially load the largest portion of the main content on a web page.
- First Input Delay (FID) – This measures the time it takes for the browser to start processing the user’s first interaction with your website, such as clicking a link or clicking a button.
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) – This measures unexpected layout changes that occur throughout the lifetime of the page.
To meet the Core Web Vitals, your web page must have an LCP in 2.5 seconds, an FID of 100 ms or less, and a CLS score of 0.1 or less.
Why Core Web Vitals Matter
exist 2020Google announced that page experience signals as a whole will be part of Google’s search ranking factors.
After launch, Google’s John Mueller comfirmed It’s not just a “tiebreaker” metric.
“It’s a ranking factor, it’s not just a tiebreaker, but it also doesn’t replace correlation.
Depending on the website you work on, you might notice it more or less.
Part of your responsibility as an SEO is to go through all possible optimizations and find out which ones are worth your time.
Any SEO tool will spit out 10 or 100 “suggestions,” most of which have nothing to do with your site’s visibility in search.
It takes experience to find projects that make sense for the job. “
Also, in Core Web Vitals Q&AMueller pointed out that Core Web Vitals are not binary.
You may see improved rankings when a site changes from “Needs Improvement” to “Good” in LCP, FID and/or CLS.
Discover what’s missing from your CWV data
Google offers three ways to track your site’s core web metrics:
- Search Console core web metrics report.
- Chrome User Experience Report.
- PageSpeed Insights.
These tools can give you insight into your website’s performance.
On their own, they all have inherent flaws that can make it difficult to track exactly the UX data you really want.
In short, if you only use Google’s native tools for CWV troubleshooting, you risk missing critical information that can help you gain insight and effectively improve your website.
What’s missing from Google Search Console?
Google Search Console doesn’t immediately show Core Web Vitals issues by single URL.
Instead, it displays problems by URL group.
This makes it difficult to drill down to specific pages that need to be changed.
reason, according to Search Console Helpas follows:
“This report is not designed to find the status of a specific URL, but to look at your site’s overall performance and troubleshoot issues affecting multiple pages on your site.
If you want to see performance data about a specific URL, use an external test. Although you can drill down into status and issues and view specific affected URLs, using the Core Web Vitals report to find a given URL can be challenging. “
What’s missing from the Chrome UX report?
Metrics from the Chrome User Experience Report Does not provide insights for a specific URL.
“Site owners who need more detailed (URL-level parsing) analysis and insight into their site’s performance, and can use the same API to collect detailed real user measurement (RUM) data for their own sources.”
What’s missing from the Pagespeed Insights tool?
Pagespeed Insights Tool provides both Field and lab data for your site’s core Web Vitals.
Field data represents your actual user experience over the past 28 days.
Lab data is collected in a controlled environment with predefined settings of devices and networks.
Of the two different data sources, which one should you trust to better optimize your website performance?
How to Accurately Measure Your Core Web Vitals Data
For more detailed analysis and a clear understanding of your core Web vitals, Google recommends:
- Use external tools to decompose and compile CWV data in a way that makes sense to you.
- Learn about API connections to create personal custom tools.
Clearly, Google’s tools provide the framework for data collection.
DebugBear takes care of laying out the data you need in a way that helps you improve your website.
How DebugBear Provides Better Monitoring of Core Web Vitals
DebugBear has several Core Network Vital Signs Monitoring SEO professionals and developers can use these features to identify the pages most in need of performance optimization.
1. Track historical changes to understand what is happening
DebugBear will track historical changes to your Core Web Vitals in the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX).
This will allow you to see the slowest URLs with long-term performance trends.
2. Set up a daily Google Lighthouse test and see how today’s changes affect your performance metrics
DebugBear uses Google Lighthouse to test your website every day.
This means you don’t have to wait 28 days after making a change to see how it affects your performance metrics.
3. Drill down on site performance by region
Wondering how your site is performing in a specific region?
Instead of PageSpeed Insights’ three servers from North America, Europe, or Asia, DebugBear allows you to choose your testing location from more than a dozen locations around the world.
4. Make sure your developers see all key performance optimization insights
DebugBear also runs on top of Google Lighthouse, collecting additional data about your site’s Core Web Vitals and overall performance.
These insights are designed to give developers the data they need to make key performance optimizations that can have a significant impact on metrics and rankings.
Screenshot of Core Web Vitals in DebugBear, March 2022Sign up for a free trial
Want to understand the performance of your website and the core web vitals that may affect your ability to outperform your competitors?
Learn more about DebugBear Core Network Vital Signs Monitoring service or Sign up for a 14-day free trial See how it works for yourself.
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Featured Image: Image provided by DebugBear. Used with permission.
