Google core web vitals FAQ
WHAT are GOOGLE CORE WEB VITALS?
Launched in 2021, the Core Web Vitals (CWV) are user-centric page metrics that Google takes into account in their ranking algorithm. They help measure how smooth and seamless the UX of your page is. The Google PageSpeed Insights tool helps you measure Core Web Vitals and gives speed optimization instructions so you can improve your score. You can test your site here.
The level of optimization needed to get a 80+ score and pass the CWV test is very advanced and time-consuming. For this reason, we offer it as a separate service and don’t include it in all of our plans. The only plan that includes CWV optimization is our Advance++ plan, $500/mo., with a minimum duration of 3 months. In some cases, we might have to ask you to keep the plan longer, but that will be based on the specific workload needed for your website.
We optimize the homepage mainly, and a few other key pages, up to 5, and the reso of the pages are not being optimized manually, but rather with global methods.
During this process, the following things would be done, so you would have to be aware of that since this is the only way to achieve decent results:
1. Removing any animations you may have on the site
2. Replacing sliders with another slider plugin that is more lightweight, or replacing it with a static section with an image.
3. Delaying a load of certain elements on the page, until the user interacts with the site, on a scroll or on a mouse move / on mobile it would be on touch.
4. Rebuilding certain sections of pages in another way.
5. Setting up caching, minification.
6. Lazy load the images.
7. Selectively disable plugins on pages where they are not being used, reducing their impact on the load time of the site.
8. Converting main images to a new .webP image format, which is preferred by Google.
9. Removing any third-party integrations that may cause issues.
We also offer the CWV optimization as a one-time service. If you request a quote, we will review your site and provide you with a detailed quote for your website specifically, but the price starts at around $1000.
FAQ
Here are a few frequently asked questions we get from our existing members or new visitors who want to use our service to improve their PageSpeed score and Google Core Web Vitals:
Q: Why isn’t the CWV optimization included in all plans?
A: In our experience, we almost always need to rebuild whole sections of the website’s code to get a good score. This type of development work isn’t included in most of our support and maintenance plans to keep the pricing affordable for everyone.
Q: Do you guarantee that my site will pass the CWV test after the optimization?
A: The short answer is that we cannot guarantee it, due to uncontrollable factors like third-party scripts, plugins, etc. However, we do everything in our power so that your website would pass the test. Keep in mind that after the optimization is completed, we will submit your website for a crawl on Google, which takes about 30 days to complete. After the crawl is completed and new lab data is gathered, your site should pass the test, with green or orange colors for all metrics. Please see the image below:
Q: What will my score be?
A: In most cases, we are able to achieve a score of 80 or higher. However, it can happen that due to third-party scripts or similar uncontrollable factors, a 80+ score cannot be achieved, which makes the final score slightly lower.
Q: How long does the optimization take to complete?
A: Our work can take anywhere from a few days all the way to a couple of weeks to complete. And only then we can submit your website to Google for a new crawl, which can take about 30 days to complete.
Q: What will happen if I don’t optimize my site to pass the Google Core Web Vitals test?
A: While we encourage everyone to speed up their websites as much as possible, the Core Web Vitals update is just one part of Google’s complex ranking algorithm. In order to rank high in the search results, it’s wise to optimize everything that you can. Still, if your site doesn’t pass the CWV test, it doesn’t mean that your website can’t rank high at all. You can learn more about the CWV update here.
Q: Is there anything I can do on my own to improve Core Web Vitals?
A: If your site is very simple, you can try to follow this video tutorial we created. It will show you how to install a plugin that we found that can help some very simple sites.
Things to keep in mind:
Roughly speaking, 95% of the sites on the web don’t pass this test. Some pages can have a low score just because the Google PageSpeed test is different from the GT Metrix test, according to which many website owners optimize their sites. However, it’s important to take this recent update to the Google algorithm into account and keep in mind that improving your website’s Core Web Vitals is a process that takes time and requires patience.
Due to a high demand for this service it may take us more than 2 weeks to complete – please contact us to get a time estimate and quote for your website.
How to start
If you wish to optimize your website’s Core Web Vitals, just fill out this form and we’ll send you an estimate.
