A slow website is bad for users. The ideal website load time is 1-2 seconds, with 50% of visitors abandoning the website visit if pages take longer than 3 seconds to load. Trying to stand out online isn’t easy. The last thing you need is to have your customers abandon your website for your competitors’ faster website. Google aims for under half-a-second load time, (I know scary, right?) and so slow website are also likely to fall down the Google rankings. If you’re reading this post it means you’re now asking yourself one question…
How fast is my website?
Measuring your website speed is easy to do and very important. A very slow website load time will have your members pulling their hair out and can be a negative Google ranking factor. But understanding what page speed means is slightly more difficult. So let’s talk about Core Web Vitals (CCVs).
What are Core Web Vitals?
In June 2021 Google introduced the three performance metrics that can be used to measure a websites speed and which impact rankings, in an effort to encourage a better user experience on the web – These metrics are known as the Core Web Vitals (CCV’c) and include:
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
Tracks page loading speed. From the time your web browser starts to load until the main content of a web page is loaded and ready to go.
First Input Delay (FID)
Tracks the time it takes before someone interacts with the page. By interaction we talking about clicking links, scrolling the page, etc.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
Tracks visual stability on the page. Ok, a slightly more complex one here. Have you ever started browsing content on a page, when suddenly the article you were reading jumps down the page and an advert appears in its place? This would cause a large CLS score.
Why should Membership Organisations care about CWV’s?
So, just to summarise: Core Web Vitals are important for SEO, as they can help give your website more recognition which improves your website’s visibility and ranking in browsers. It also contributes towards an improved user experience.
For Membership organisations your website is supposed to be a hub for your members to connect with you and each other. A slow experience will drive your members away, ruining your member retention levels.
How to check your Core Web Vitals (CWV)
So now you know the metrics involved and how to evaluate your website speed, let me introduce you to the Google speed test tool called PageSpeed Insights found at https://pagespeed.web.dev/
This is the fun and easy part. Type your website address into the tool and click Go!
Now to see if your website passes or fails the test.