Principally Core Web Vitals assesses the page experience to ensure it is stable and the visitor enjoys the experience of your site. It is being launched to help website owners focus on what matters most when evolving their digital hub. Usually Google issues an algorithm change without warning, however because of its significance this one has been notified months ahead.

With a world that is operating almost exclusively online, this algorithm change will be of critical importance to recruiters whether they are looking to engage clients, attract candidates or build their brand.

UX and SEO go hand in hand and, as part of this update, there are key factors of a web experience that will start to be measured and prioritised for search engine rankings and these are:

• Load speed of the page – Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

 A page that loads quicker delivers the information to users promptly. LCP reviews how long the largest piece of content takes to load – image, copy, video, audio.
Desired outcome: Ensure your largest piece of content loads in under 2.5 seconds

• Visual Stability – Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

Increasingly your pages need to be stable and that’s where Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) will rank your pages in terms of how quickly the page elements settle. Basically, buttons and features on pages should not move and the page needs to build quicker collectively whatever device they are looking at it on.
Desired outcome: A CLS score of less than 0.1 seconds.

• Interactivity – First Input Delay (FID)

This is all about how fast a page is available to interact with. First Input Delay (FID) measures the time it takes the visitor to be able to interact with your page when the site is fully loaded.
Desired outcome: Aim for an FID of less than 100 milliseconds.

With these SEO improvements Google is ensuring pages perform well whilst providing stability where the site is being viewed. These technical enhancements force sites to constantly evolve to provide the optimum experience expected by visitors. 

Core Web Vitals reporting will be found in the ‘enhancements’ section of your Google Search Console to score your pages. 

Thankfully, Google has given website owners an extended deadline of mid-June 2021 to get everything in order to avoid your website’s authority being threatened with a poor score. Create a roadmap of actions to improve these factors with the overall aim to improve the user on page experience.

The benefits of implementing the desired changes from Google increases the likelihood of better awareness and traction to your pages, whilst you could see performance of your website drop if Google ranks you down if your site doesn’t comply with Core Web Vitals.

For further information:

For further insight into Core Web Vitals and what you can do to manage it, click here to watch this talk at a recruitment industry event by Matt Comber from Volcanic, Laura Monckton from The Access Group and Paige Hobart from Roast.

Next steps:

If you wish to discuss your recruitment website needs, why not book a demo and see how Volcanic can unlock your potential.