Should You Freak Out Over
Core Web Vitals?
The SEO landscape seems to be teeming with sales pitches showing low Google Pagespeed scores, and scaring people into paying a lot of money to get it “fixed”. The truth is, it may not be broken.
We’ve had a handle on this kind of thing for a long time. A few years ago, before all this Core Web Vital talk, we were preaching that a search optimized site is a healthy site. That’s been the case since SEO has been important.
You should have been doing this anyway.
The whole concept of Core Web Vitals being new to people is a little off-putting. Your site should load quickly, it should be easy to use, it should provide a user experience that guides them into your sales process. When we build websites from the ground up, these are the tenets by which we know the website will be successful.
Core Web Vitals, introduced earlier this month, are a set of metrics related to speed, responsiveness and visual stability. Google has defined these as the Core Web Vitals: Largest Contentful Paint: The time it takes for a page’s main content to load.
Core Web Vitals are important, but…
Core Web Vitals are important, but there’s one thing that will remain king, and that’s RELEVANCE.
Check out these two interviews with Google personnel who explain it from the best source possible:
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-site-traffic-core-web-vitals/397294/#close
Google’s own John Mueller states “…relevance is still by far much more important.”
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-discusses-core-web-vitals-update/397319/#close
Google’s Danny Sullivan states “So, maybe you don’t have the best page experience… But if you’re still the most relevant content, that is going to you know overall on various things we’re looking at.”
Where Core Web Vitals come into play, is if your site is being ranked on the results page along with a very close competitor, one of the aspects of your site that could put you ahead is your core web vitals.
Let’s say two people are applying for a job. They both have the same experience and knowledge and are equally qualified for that job, but one of them has noticeably better speaking skills. They have better eye contact, confidence, etc. Their “core vitals” are the tie breaker that wins them the job.
Now, in the same situation, if one candidate were more relevant for the job, the rest wouldn’t matter, they’re getting the position. The same concept applies here. Think of Core Web Vitals as more of a “tie breaker” than a be-all-end-all.
Don’t live in fear. Just have a strong, relevant website that is easy to use. This formula has worked for our clients for years.