Business owners and marketers were warned in May of 2020. Google announced their Core Web Vitals update last spring, and after some false starts on the exact date, they confirmed that the update will be rolled out in May of 2021.
Webmasters have basically had a year to prepare. But guess how many are leaving their SEO homework until the very last minute? You guessed it: Most.
In fact, as of August 2020, only about 12-13% of tested sites appeared to be ready for the Core Web Vitals. It seems that most webmasters will be doing their homework at the last moment, or have no plans to do anything.
The businesses that plan on updating their sites still have some time. And here is a broad view of what they should focus on.
Site Speed
5G coverage is expanding and our devices are getting faster. This means that web users are expecting a faster browsing experience. Google is well aware of this, so they have made speed a major part of the Core Web Vitals update.
Fortunately, the most common issue that plagues many slow sites is easy to fix.
“In a lot of cases, we see a given site’s speed being slowed down by a lack of optimized images. This means that the browser must resize that image to fit the screen for each visitor and uses up resources in the process,” said Paul Teitelman, one of the leading Toronto SEO experts and owner of Paul Teitelman SEO Consulting.
“Look at the file type. PNG files tend to be bigger. Your best bet is to resize the image for the space, and save all images without transparent backgrounds as JPEGs.”
Mobile Friendliness
Google transitioned to mobile-first indexing for the entire web in September of 2020. Simply put, this means that they will look at a given domain’s mobile site before they look at the desktop experience.
They first announced this move in 2017, but webmasters and site owners have still been slow to prioritize their mobile sites. It’s estimated that a quarter of the top-performing sites on the web are still not mobile-friendly.
At the very least, a site should pass Google’s free mobile-friendly test. However, with the mobile experience being a major part of the Core Web Vitals, it would be wise for site owners to audit and test their entire mobile experience.
Intrusive Interstitial Ads
Interstitial ads remain one of the most common ways for a business to drive customers to their free trial or mailing list. However, if you’re going to use one, you need to give the user an easy exit.
Google has given us some very clear guidelines to show us what is and isn’t acceptable in an interstitial ad, to ensure that users don’t feel trapped by an offer. Any violations will hurt your rankings.
How big will this update be? It’s poised to be the biggest in years. So, it’s in your best interest to take this seriously and take action right now!
