Google’s Core Web Vitals Update and How Businesses Can Benefit With PWA

Post-covid, there has been a drastic increase in the eCommerce industry. Among various technologies, Progressive Web Applications or PWA development has helped eCommerce websites to increase their web performance and provide a better user experience. Magento recently conducted a webinar to explain new Google Core Web Vital metrics and how PWA can help eCommerce websites improve their performance.

Google’s Core Web Vital

Core Web Vital refers to the speed metrics that help in measuring user experience towards their website browsing. These can be measured by lab tools and field tools. While lab data is collected under a controlled environment, field data is the report generated by the user’s personal experience towards a website. Lab tools include Chrome DevTools, Lighthouse, and WebPageTest. On the other hand, field tools for measuring Core Web Vital are Chrome User Experience Report, Google Search Console, Google Page Speed Insights, Web.dev, Web-vitals JavaScript Library, and Web Vital Extension.

A new Google update for Page Experience for ranking websites in Google was available from mid-June 2021 till August 2021. This Core Web Vital and Page Experience signal combination would help users get mobile-friendly websites with HTML security, safe browsing, and intrusive interstitial guidelines. The new Core Web Vitals would include Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), First Input Delay (FID), and Largest Contentful Paint (LCP).  

#1. Cumulative Layout Shift

Cumulative Layout Shift or CLS, as it is majorly called, measures user experience when the layout of the page or elements change unexpectedly. This change usually occurs when the pictures or advertisements are not properly aligned. The user may get annoyed as they need to readjust according to the changed layout. So, the updated Google metrics would measure user experience on this sudden shift. A website will pass Core Web Vital if 75 per cent of users experience CLS lower than or equal to 0.1. 

#2. First Input Delay

First Input Delay (FID) measures the total time between the user’s first interaction and the website’s actual response to the interaction. Being one of the field metrics, it is measured on the real interaction and experience of the user. For measuring FID under lab environment, the metric used is total blocking time (TBT). For a website to pass Core Web Vital, FID should be lower or equal to 100 milliseconds for at least 75 per cent of the users.

#3. Largest Contentful Paint

LCP or Largest Contentful Paint refers to the duration in which the largest element of the website becomes visible. For an eCommerce website, this element can be the product image. If a website has an LCP of 2.5 seconds for at least 75 per cent of the time, it can pass Google’s Core Web Vital. If LCP is greater than 4 seconds, the website tends to provide a poor user experience.

Why is Google’s Core Web Vital important for eCommerce?

According to a study by Layer0, 87 per cent of eCommerce websites are not ready to adapt this Google update, based on their Core Web Vital Scores. These metrics have three threshold points for “poor,” “needs improvement,” and “good” performance. A website to pass Core Web Vital has to reach 75 per cent of real-user experience based on the new metrics. 

But as of now, only 13 per cent of the eCommerce websites would be passing the given threshold of Core Web Vital. This means that 87 per cent of eCommerce websites would be categorized in underperforming status with higher bounce rates, reduced traffic, decreased sales, and lower rankings in Google organic search, negatively impacting the eCommerce store’s success.

How To Optimize Your eCommerce Store?

eCommerce store optimization that achieve the core web vital results is a key priority. It helps grow the sales, revenue and business success. Here is how you can achieve with the latest technologies. 

#1. Headless Commerce Approach

Headless Commerce Approach is one of the best ways for optimizing eCommerce store as it decouples front-end architecture from back-end architecture. In a layman’s language, the presentation layer is detached from the back-end functionality. All the changes are made in the back-end without interrupting the front-end or presentation layer. This helps the stores to provide a unique and engaging experience to the user. 

This headless architecture in PWA development uses API that allows the owners to refresh the design with a small code rather than re-implementing the whole code. It increases the speed the website takes to load or reload, thereby affecting LCP and FID. 

It optimizes and benefits the eCommerce stores in the following ways:

• By using React Js, it helps to develop a flexible framework in a short period.
• It allows the admin to choose splash background, colour, theme, icons, images, notifications, and featured categories, making its cumulative layout shift (CLS) minimum.
• It is highly responsive and provides cross-platform compatibility.
• The transactional facility can rapidly be added to existing user interfaces.
• The headless PWA solution helps to increase conversion rates while lowering customer acquisition costs.

#2. PWA

PWA focuses on increasing the website’s speed by minimizing the amount of content needed for quick response to user’s interaction by pre-caching the content and delivering it when needed. Thus, using Service Workers technology, PWA enhances the LCP and FID score of the website.

Key Takeaways

PWA solution and Headless architecture can help optimize eCommerce stores by providing a unique user experience and improving web performance, security, and fast loading. The owners need to work on the three new Core Web Vital metrics for increasing their ranking.