Optimize Your Site for Core Web Vitals

We've identified several potential problem areas and how to update them to improve your Core Web Vital scores to help you optimise your website for Google's Core Web Vitals. See Introduction to Core Web Vitals for more information on what each of the Core Web Vitals measures, how to measure it, and ideal scores.

Custom and Heavy Widgets

Because they load content from a third-party service, both custom and heavy widgets can be slow. This requires calling an external API to retrieve and then load the content.

Not all custom widgets take a long time to load. It is dependent on how the custom widget was created.

Heavy widgets: Map, Twitter Feed, Facebook Like, Facebook Feed/Page, Facebook Comments, Audio (Soundcloud, Mixtape), Video (Custom, Youtube, Vimeo), Photo Gallery, Image Slider, Lottie Animations, Multi-location, Google Calendar, and Disqus.

How to Fix

To improve your Core Web Vitals scores, do the following:

• Move any custom/heavy widgets from the top of your page to the bottom. This prevents them from having a negative impact on CLS and FID by loading and then pushing content down the page below them.
• Add multiple custom/heavy widgets to the same page as a last resort. The loading times of each widget vary, which can reduce the LCP.
• If a custom widget is causing FID, you can request that your developer improve how the content is rendered and fetched by employing techniques such as async loading, fetching data off the main thread, and others.
  

eCommerce

JavaScript is used to dynamically load the store. This can have an impact on CLS because the Store takes longer to load than the rest of the page's content. As a result, we recommend positioning the Store lower on the page rather than at the top.

How to Fix

To improve your Core Web Vitals scores, do the following:

• Instead of putting the Store at the top of the Store page, add content above it. This places the Store below the fold.
• Create your own category pages or use the Store Product Gallery widget to do so. Because there is less content and code to render before they are displayed, native images and photo gallery elements load faster than the Store.
  

Fonts

Web fonts can cause your website to load slowly because the browser must download and load the entire font family for each font and weight combination. Fonts of up to 50KB are automatically downloaded and embedded within the HTML. This improves the speed with which your browser renders custom fonts and helps to prevent CLS. However, this is not always sufficient, which is why we recommend using no more than two font families and only a few weights from each.

How to Fix

To boost your Web Vitals score:



• If you have more than two fonts on your website, remove them from specific elements or widgets. Only use global fonts to apply the fonts and weights you require. After this is finished, only the fonts required for the text to display properly are downloaded.
  

Google Tag Manager

Google Tag Manager may download unnecessary libraries and code, which can reduce LCP.

How to Fix

To raise your Web Vitals score:

• Remove Google Tag Manager if at all possible. If you only use one or two tracking technologies, Google Tag Manager may not be worth implementing.
• If you decide to use Google Tag Manager, make sure to read our Google Tag Manager Tracking guide. This ensures that the tracking code loads correctly and does not cause the site to slow down.
• Do not include Google Tag Manager in the website's header. This causes it to load first, ahead of other critical site elements.
  

Images and Background Videos

Images and background videos are the most common assets that browsers download from your site. When there are too many images, such as one large image above the fold or a video, it can cause a delay in LCP and an increase in CLS because the browser must download the elements before they can be rendered. Large background images/videos, image slideshows, background images with another image on top, or multiple large images in a row at the top of the page are all examples of this.

A "large image" is one that takes up the majority of the page width.

How to Fix

To raise your Web Vitals score:

• Above the fold, use only one image.
• Reduce the image size to an icon or thumbnail if you need multiple images above the fold.
• Lower the position of background videos and slideshows on the page. If you must use a slideshow, keep it to three images or less.