How To Do a Health Checkup for Your SEO Campaign?

If you want to keep an eye on your SEO campaign health, tracking a variety of metrics tops the list of important tasks. However, with all the data available today, it may be difficult to know what to focus on. Your SEO agency professionals can help. In addition, Google’s Core Web Vitals point to the essential metrics used in getting higher site rankings. What are they and how do you keep track of them to improve the health of your SEO campaign?

Let’s begin!

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What Are the Core Web Vitals?

Webmasters and marketers are always looking for ways to improve a site's visibility and organic search traffic. They use a variety of analytics to do so. As part of that effort, many of them turn to Google for guidance on what they should focus on. After all, if you can track your site's data against Google's Core Web Vitals, you are likely to have a good understanding of where your strengths and weaknesses lie.

These metrics focus on site user experience. They help to make sure that your website displays in the best way possible for every visitor.

Lab Testing (synthetic) 

• Largest contentful paint (LCP) 
• Cumulative layout shift (CLS) 
• Total blocking time (TBT)

Field testing (real user monitoring)

• Largest contentful paint (LCP)
• Cumulative layout shift (CLS)
• First input delay (FID)

What does this new terminology mean for your SEO efforts? The Largest Contentful Paint shows how long it takes for a main web page’s content to load. Cumulative Layout Shift focuses on visual stability and how quickly the site displays new layout information. Total Blocking Time measures JavaScript task activity. First Input Delay times the gap between a user interaction and the website’s response.

Basically, these metrics boil down to this: Websites that are slow to load or unresponsive frustrate users and lead to lost traffic and sales. Website speed is in loading and displaying is a factor that search engines use to rank websites. By tracking your website's speed and responsiveness, you can determine where improvements need to be made. Tools and services available to help you do this will be covered later in this article.

Why You Should Track Core Web Vitals

The simplest answer to this question is you should keep track of these metrics because Google does. They use the measurements within an overall SEO algorithm to decide whose website shows up at the top of the search engine result pages (SERPs). Also, you want every visitor to have an excellent user experience when they arrive on your website. Content rendering speed, click response, and smooth actions all contribute to that.

While elements like content, keywords, and robust backlink strategies help, technical SEO is a vital part of the entire success equation. Technical SEO refers to all the behind-the-scenes elements of your website that impact your site’s visibility in search engines. This includes factors like page speed, crawlability, and indexing. Tracking and optimizing these elements can help you improve your website’s performance in SERPs just as much as other efforts. One way to track your site’s technical SEO health is to use a tool like Google PageSpeed Insights, but it does not give you the full picture of all Core Web Values.

Look at Core Vitals like Google Does

Google uses page experience metrics like these to position your website in their search engine. Other search engines function similarly, so these site speed and performance points benefit you across the board.

What are the recommended values you should focus on when tracking these metrics? Google and other search engines are rather secretive about their algorithms, so it’s difficult to come up with definitive numbers that these platforms want for each specific data point. However, plenty of research has gone into determining safe ranges for optimum site visitor experience.

• Largest Contentful Paint – Under 2.5 seconds. Do not go over four seconds.
• Cumulative Layout Shift – Under .1 seconds. Do not go over .25 seconds.
• Total Blocking Time – Under 300 microseconds. Do not go over 600 microseconds.
• First Input Delay – Under 100 microseconds. Do not go over 300 microseconds.

When you improve your Core Web Vital numbers, you increase engagement, drive conversions higher, and reduce bounce rates. You will see advantages for other data analytics that you already track. From an in-house perspective, these metrics help you keep discussions open about technical aspects of your online platform and your overall SEO strategy. The content creation team must create videos, for example, that do not slow down the site load speed. Everything must mesh smoothly to get the best search engine results.

How to Track Vitals for SEO Improvement

Is it possible to track these core metrics the same way Google does? No one knows the search engine’s algorithm inside and out, but it is possible to gather at least some of this information if you use the Chrome browser. If your website gets enough traffic, you can use the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) to get monthly data about your site pages, available only through this browser. Obviously, this does not give you full information. 

Other free and premium options are available including Lighthouse, Page Speed Insights, the Web Vitals Extension for Chrome, and a variety of other developer tools. Consider working with a professional SEO agency, which has access to better tools. This not only allows you to use more robust tracking options through them, but it also gives you more time and energy to handle everyday operations, digital marketing campaigns, and brand growth activities.

Of course, once you attract these metrics and determine the seconds or microseconds the actions on your web pages take, you undoubtedly need to find a way to improve them. Although going beyond the recommended minimum values is not necessary, it always helps to continuously tweak page loading and experience metrics to improve user satisfaction and stay prepared for new Google algorithm changes that will come in the future.

Summing Up

When you keep track of the Core Web Vital metrics for your website, you help ensure that the health of all your SEO efforts remains high. Contact Digital Authority today to learn how a professional team can work with you to maximize results.