Author: Kaitlin Farris

What are Google Fonts?

Written by Kaitlin Farris on December 10, 2022. Posted in Website Design.

Google Fonts is a library of over 800 different typefaces, completely ready to be used in your web projects. The great thing about Google Fonts is that they are free to use, and easy to integrate into your website.

One of the key benefits of using Google Fonts is that they are served from Google’s own servers, which means that they will load quickly, even on slow connections. This is especially important for user experience, as slow loading times can lead to frustrated users and high bounce rates.

Another benefit of using Google Fonts is that they are extremely easy to integrate into your website. All you need to do is add a few lines of code to your website’s stylesheet, and you’re good to go. Google Fonts also has a library of pre-designed pairings that you can use to quickly find the perfect font combination for your site.

One of the key features of Google Fonts is the ability to preview fonts on your own website before you decide to use them. This is especially useful if you’re not sure which font will look best on your site, or if you want to see how a font will look with your existing design. You can even adjust the font size, line height, and other styling options to get a better idea of how the font will look on your site.

One of the things that sets Google Fonts apart from other font libraries is the sheer number of fonts that are available. There are over 800 different fonts to choose from, ranging from modern sans-serifs to more traditional serifs, and everything in between. This means that you’re sure to find a font that fits the aesthetic of your site, no matter what you’re looking for.

One of the other great things about Google Fonts is that they are constantly adding new fonts to their library. This means that you’ll never run out of options, and you’ll always be able to find the perfect font for your site. Additionally, because Google Fonts are free to use, you can experiment with different fonts without having to worry about the cost.

Overall, Google Fonts is a fantastic resource for anyone looking to add beautiful, high-quality fonts to their website. With a vast library of fonts to choose from, easy integration, and the ability to preview fonts on your own site, Google Fonts is the perfect choice for any web project.

7 Reasons Why Social Media Marketing is Important

Written by Kaitlin Farris on December 9, 2022. Posted in Social Media.

Social media marketing is an essential tool for businesses looking to reach their target audience and drive engagement and sales. With billions of active users on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, social media provides a huge opportunity for businesses to connect with potential customers and grow their brand.

But with so much noise on social media, it can be challenging for businesses to stand out and effectively market themselves. Here are some key strategies for successful social media marketing:

Identify Your Target Audience

Before you can effectively market on social media, you need to know who you’re trying to reach. This means defining your target audience in terms of demographics, interests, and behaviors. This will help you create content that resonates with your audience and gets their attention.

Develop a Content Strategy

Once you know who your target audience is, you can start creating content that speaks to their interests and needs. This could include blog posts, videos, infographics, and other types of content that provide value to your audience and encourage them to engage with your brand.

Use Visuals

Social media is a visual medium, so incorporating visuals into your content can make it more engaging and effective. This could include high-quality images, videos, or even memes that grab your audience’s attention and help your content stand out in their feed.

Engage with Your Audience

Social media is a two-way conversation, so it’s important to actively engage with your audience. This means responding to comments and messages, sharing user-generated content, and asking for feedback to foster a sense of community around your brand.

Monitor and Track Your Performance

Social media marketing is most effective when it’s data-driven. This means using tools to monitor and track your performance, such as the number of likes and shares your content receives, the reach of your posts, and the engagement rate of your audience. This will help you identify what’s working and what’s not, and adjust your strategy accordingly.

Collaborate with Influencers

Influencer marketing is a popular and effective way to reach a new audience on social media. This involves partnering with influencers who have a large following in your target audience, and working with them to create sponsored content that promotes your brand.

Advertise

While organic reach on social media can be limited, advertising provides a way to reach a wider audience and drive specific actions, such as visiting your website or making a purchase. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram offer a range of ad formats and targeting options, so you can tailor your ads to your audience and goals.

In conclusion, social media marketing is a powerful tool for businesses looking to reach their target audience and drive sales and growth.

6 Time-Saving Small Business Website Tips

Written by Kaitlin Farris on April 10, 2022. Posted in Website Design.

Managing a small business means overseeing all operations while managing day-to-day tasks. You’re everything from a customer service representative to a webmaster.

All that work requires incredible amounts of time. If you don’t want to be a workaholic, you have to find efficient ways of doing things.

Maintaining your website is one area where you don’t want to cut corners, but you also can’t spend several hours per week keeping it secure, updating content and responding to customer inquiries.

You can put more time back into your busy workdays with these 6 time-saving small business website tips.

Work with a Website Designer
Integrate Automation Software
Find a Quality SEO Consultant
Build a Reasonable Content Strategy
Prioritize Preventative Maintenance to Avoid Issues
Activate a Chatbot

1. Work with a Website Designer

Trends are always shifting when it comes to website design, integrations, tools, hosting requirements, and more. If you want your website to remain modern and compete for SEO, you probably need a good partner.

There are plenty of DIY tools for creating your own website. The trouble is, these come with templates that don’t match your brand perfectly and have excess code that slows them down. Slow site speeds lead to high bounce rates. And you’ll struggle to get a slow website to rank for SEO.

You need a firm website foundation along with the resources to guide you in updating aspects of your website design so you don’t have to do a complete overhaul every few years. Complete redesign projects will lead to large time requirements, which small business owners generally like to avoid.

Plus, your website partner can manage maintaining your website, including:

Hosting
Security checks
Regular backups
Updating software and plugins
Engaging in regular speed tests to look for opportunities

You’ll have a partner for all technical aspects of your website so you can focus on other areas of your business and ensuring your website speaks to the needs of your customer.

2. Integrate Automation Software

Automation works wonders for helping small business owners save time. Thankfully, there are automation tools available for just about every aspect of a small business. While you might not be able to afford it for every little thing, you should consider which automation types would provide the most time savings and business improvements.

Automation software can help with managing the following website tasks:

Creating content marketing ideas to build your content calendar
Reducing the work of repetitive marketing or website tasks
Generating media ideas
Following important analytics and website metrics
Automating follow-up emails or customer journeys

Some examples of software that can help with automating these tasks include Semrush, RankBuddy and SE Ranking. These software options have tiers based on your needs and the tools you want to subscribe to. As you evaluate the cost, consider the time this software provides you and whether you might hire a specialist who has access to this software already.

3. Find a Quality SEO Consultant

Building an SEO strategy and monitoring opportunities for your website will work wonders for bringing in new customers and growing your business. It doesn’t matter whether your manage an e-commerce store or you provide services to your customers, you need a constant flow of website traffic to reach new people and expand your customer base.

Learning the basics of SEO takes time and you’ll need to purchase tools. On your way to becoming an expert, you can actually harm your SEO with poor tactics. And with one algorithm change, you might need to reevaluate your strategy and update various aspects of your website.

The work and rework required to stay at the top of search engines is enormous, which is why having a good partner can make all the difference. You’ll find that you have options to meet your budgetary needs when evaluating SEO consultants. Some do all the website work for you, while others provide recommendations on changes you should make and allow you to do it yourself to save some money. Depending on where you’re at with your small business, you might need these various service levels.

4. Build a Reasonable Content Strategy

Content is essential to inbound marketing strategies – that is, bringing in customers through online activity. Blogs can help answer questions that customers have long before they consider products or services that solve those problems. That positions you as an expert and brings interested potential customers to your website when they’re poised to purchase the service you’re offering.

For small businesses, the key is creating a content strategy you can stay consistent with. You can’t publish a blog and then ignore that area of your website for six months. Social media content should target the best times of day for your target audience and post at least a couple of times per week.

Email marketing should be no less than a monthly newsletter to your customers and prospects who’ve shown an interest in your products or services.

But ultimately, you have to create a content strategy that fits your time constraints and resources. Consistency is just as important as developing quality content.

5. Prioritize Preventative Maintenance to Avoid Issues

Broken images, links leading to 404 error pages, faulty call-to-action buttons and slow page speeds can all lead to a poor user experience. Your website visitors might leave your site before you ever get a chance to demonstrate what makes your product or service unique and valuable.

Before you try to get fancy with integrating additional services or functionality, focus on preventative maintenance. Some software services provide error notifications that help you avoid these issues that impact your user experience.

Your website must offer a good user experience if you want to attract potential customers and get them to stay long enough to learn why you matter. So when you dedicate time to your website, start by focusing on fixing broken or poor website elements. Continuous improvement can come after you’ve fixed any errors.

6. Activate a Chatbot

Chatbots have transformed customer service in impactful ways. You can automate responses to common inquiries and enjoy time savings from the need to handle an influx of calls or emails about an issue.

Depending on the content management system (CMS) your website operates on and the software available to you, some chatbots could be free or included with existing services.

And the user experience improvements can have a big impact. No longer will your customers have to search FAQs or wait for a response, they can get answers simply by typing their questions into the chatbox.

While managing a small business website is time-consuming work, it’s also essential in today’s online-driven marketplace. If you’re looking for a website partner to free up some time in your business day, contact Kelly Website Design. We offer many helpful website services so small businesses can create and maintain stunning online experiences.

How Website Design Could Affect Your Sales

Written by Kaitlin Farris on February 27, 2022. Posted in Marketing, Website Design.

Online sales continue to grow. In fact, 2019 saw a 14.9 percent increase in online sales over the previous year, accounting for $601.75 billion nationally. Sales through your website are a crucial aspect of your business because so much consumer spending now occurs online. A difficult reality to face for many businesses is that website design could have a large impact on your sales.

When a website visitor lands on your site, you only have a couple of seconds to draw them in and convince them to make a purchase. The experience they have within those first few seconds will dictate whether or not they leave and go to a competitor whose website is more attractive or better suited to their needs.

As you evaluate your website, here are some ways in which website design can affect your sales and what you should do about it.

Lack of Design Fails to Guide Visitors Through Your Site

Websites that have effective design showcase the various aspects of your products or services that help users make a purchasing decision. Websites with a strong design never leave a visitor wondering what they should do next on the site.

For example, product pages should have clear “add to cart” buttons. And below the main product, you should be showcasing similar products that generally accompany that product. This helps highlight the overall value you offer and the breadth of that offering.

Website visitors who land on your homepage first should be able to ascertain your key consumer benefit and understand your brand story at a glance. As you consider the flow of users through your website, you should know that website design is about more than making a website that looks good. It’s about simple, effective navigation that nudges your visitor to where you want them to go.

Slow Load Times Can Lead to Abandonment

When your website loads slowly, you could be losing customers. People’s lives today are busy and they expect speed and immediacy from websites. No one wants to wait around for your website to load, especially when there are so many competitors out there that do the same things you do.

Well designed websites load quickly to ensure your visitors get the crucial information they need to make a purchasing decision. You should discuss with your website developer how you can use file types appropriately and cut down on unnecessary code to ensure a speedy website so you don’t lose the sale.

Misplaced or Poor Calls to Action

When your calls to action are weak, misplaced or nonexistent, you risk losing sales. Some websites are so cluttered with calls to action that they don’t guide the user at all and can cause overwhelm.

There are three elements to a good call to action. They should be inviting, clear and bold to ensure your website visitors want to click them and can’t possibly ignore them.

Consider what your call to action should be on every page. Even your about the company page should have some call to action. It could be softer, such as a contact us instead of a purchase from us button. Nonetheless, it should be present on your page. Failure to include a call to action on every page could lead to missed sales opportunities.

Dull, Outdated Websites Don’t Invite Sharing

One of the best ways to earn new customers is through referrals. And to invite referrals, your website should be something that your customers are proud to share with their friends. The more inviting and neater it is, the more likely your customers will be to share it.

Websites that are extremely out of date or hard to read won’t compel your visitors to share them. Ensure your website is modern and sleek to get more referral marketing.

Kelly Website Design can modernize your website and ensure you get as much sales value as possible from it. Contact us to get started with your website design project.

A Guide to Using Third-Party Reviews on Your Website

Written by Kaitlin Farris on February 18, 2022. Posted in Marketing, Social Media.

What you need to know about using third-party reviews on your website

Reviews and testimonials can have a major impact on drawing in new customers. And because of that, many people copy and paste reviews from third-party websites onto their own website. But that doesn’t mean this is a good idea because you should not use someone’s name or review on your website without their permission.

Engaging in this practice can actually cause copyright issues. And these reviews don’t offer the same credibility that embedding recent reviews from these third parties could have.

What are third-party reviews?

A third-party review is any review left about your business on a website that is not yours. Some examples of third-party review websites include:

Google
Facebook
Yelp
Amazon

Customers can easily provide their thoughts and opinions on these websites. Some allow for anonymous posts while others include full details including profile images and other reviews from that same user.

Issues with copying and pasting reviews

Without including information from the original third-party site, copying and pasting reviews feels a bit ingenuine. When using this method, you can pull only the best reviews, which makes it feel staged.

Not only are copied and pasted reviews ingenuine, but they can also cause copyright issues with sites like Google. Reviews posted there are copyrighted information for that website. Taking that content from there could mean you face legal battles.

Finally, the person provided their permission for their name, likeness and details to be posted on the third-party website. They did not provide that consent for your website.

Alternatives to copying and pasting third-party reviews

Instead of copying and pasting reviews, you can look to these alternatives.

Ask the reviewer’s permission to use their review or have them write one specifically for your website. Sometimes this option gets you better content anyway because it’s tailored to your website and your needs.
Use a WordPress plugin. This way, it pulls in your reviews and embeds them directly from these third-party sites. The WordPress Business Reviews plugin offers a free option to pull in up to five Google reviews and three Yelp reviews. To get more than that, you’ll need to upgrade to premium. The premium option also offers a page showing merged reviews on a neat landing page.

Embedding the review from its original source is not the same as copying and pasting the content from the review over to your website. That’s because it provides the appropriate attribution from the third-party website and displays the source of the review. And, it doesn’t look like you’re posting that review as your own.

Why third-party reviews matter

Third-party reviews are more credible than testimonials on your website. That’s because you can’t pick and choose which reviews you like and show only the good ones on your website. That way, no bad information is out there about you.

This isn’t as trustworthy as showing the reviews from their original source. In addition to being more credible, these review sites can also show overall results on a larger scale by showcasing how many stars a company has based on how many total reviews. Showing total review counts can demonstrate the breadth of the customer base and offer greater context for a rating.

Third-party reviews are one aspect of your website strategy. For a full website strategy, design and hosting, contact us. We offer free quotes based on your needs!

How Case Studies Could Increase Your Website Conversion Rates

Written by Kaitlin Farris on February 8, 2022. Posted in Marketing, Website Design.

Finding ways to increase website conversions is one of the most common requests we get as a website design company.

And as you look for ways to do this, you need to dig deep into understanding your customers in a more meaningful way. Once you understand them, you can start building out content on your website that resonates and invites them to continue the buying journey with you.

One of the best ways to do that is to share case studies. These are stories about another company’s experience with you. It helps relay their positive experience and the impact your organization had on them.

A case study brings to life a real example of how your business helps other businesses or people. The result should show how you solved problems for that organization by increasing revenue or traffic or solving an everyday problem for them.

Case studies do far more than a simple testimonial. That’s because the testimonial doesn’t always provide a clear beginning state, end state and data to showcase the impact.

Important case study elements to produce website conversions

To succeed with having your case studies increase your website conversions, you need to include these crucial elements.

1. Business overview

Compelling case studies are real. To make your story seem as real as possible, you need to include real business information. This information should include:

Business name
Location
What they do
A logo or visual aid

Some businesses might want to tell their story anonymously. And while you can accept some anonymous case studies, just know that the ones that include this information are far more impactful.

2. Pain points

To understand the impact your business had on another business, you need to showcase the challenges or pain points that they faced before coming to you for help.

This might highlight operational or functional challenges. For example, some of the pain points that organizations come to Kelly Website Design to solve include low website traffic, poor website infrastructure, challenges with updating their website, outdated design, slow hosting servers, etc.

Highlighting the problem will make the next step of explaining the resolution simpler.

3. The resolution

Explain how you helped the business move from their pain points to the resolution you provide. If possible, include graphics of renderings or plans to bring this part of the story to life even more.

Or when no graphics make sense, describe this part of the process in clear detail. Consider including your consultative process to showcase the customer service you provide, if applicable.

4. Process for improvement

Offer details on how long the transformation took and what steps it included. You could even include challenges you faced along the way and how you overcame those challenges.

5. Outcomes/data

This is where some good data can be extremely helpful. Showcase the impacts your organization had in improving your customer’s business or life. Go back to the pain points they experienced before and describe how those changed.

6. Testimonial

Ask for the customer to put the resolution and their satisfaction with working with you into their own words. This will further confirm their experience and showcase their impression of working with your company.

7. Graphics/images

Including visuals in your story can help bring it to life and engage your reader. Otherwise, your case study will just be black and white text that is easy for the reader to navigate away from or get distracted while reading. And good visuals can bring the story to life through showing impacts or putting a face to the story.

How to set up a case study on your website

Remember that visuals are an essential element of your case study. So consider how you format your case study. For most businesses running WordPress websites, putting a case study into a blog post is an effective method.

Use different blocks and formats to keep the case study visually interesting. You might consider setting up a category specifically for case studies if you plan to develop a few so that you could link to the category landing page from other areas of your website.

You must put a form at the bottom of your case study for the website visitor to share their contact information to get on your distribution list or to schedule a free consultation. This is how you convert them from being a casual case study reader into being a prospect.

If you need help creating a case study template within your website or creating a plan for increasing website conversions, contact Kelly Website Design.

Where to get Free Images for Your Website

Written by Kaitlin Farris on February 1, 2022. Posted in Marketing, Website Design.

Visuals help draw in website visitors and visually demonstrate your brand and what you do. But stock images are also quite expensive and can use up your marketing budget quickly.

There are many free image websites that offer full commercial use without attribution. Using these sites can help bring your website to life with attractive photos that help lower your bounce rate and engage website visitors. Here’s a look at the top free image libraries you can use on your website.

Why are these photos free?

Photographers provide their images for free on several sites as a marketing tool. And hobbyists can get their images in front of hundreds of people by offering them for free commercial use. It’s a win-win because you get free images for your website and the photographer gets the opportunity to do what they love and market their skills.

You’ll also find images from brands that have subtle or not-so-subtle product placement. The brands release these photos for free commercial use to gain greater exposure.

Terms you should know before using free images sites

You should familiarize yourself with some of the legal terms surrounding image terms of use before you begin downloading photos and placing them on your website because you don’t want to face legal troubles.

Creative Commons: This nonprofit organization oversees a range of licenses for use for creative elements like images. The uses outlined by Creative Commons could require attribution or state that you cannot alter the image.
Public domain: images can become public domain once the rights to the image have expired or been forfeited. Placing an image on the internet does not automatically make it public domain, so don’t take photos from Google Images or other websites where the rights are not outlined.
Royalty-free: these images are not truly free, generally. It means that you pay a one-time fee for access to the image but you don’t have to pay royalties to its owner for various use cases.

If you’re unsure about your rights to an image or how you can use photos you’ve contracted with local models or actors to have taken, you should consult with your attorney and reference any applicable contracts.

Top 10 Sites to Download Free Website Images

Here are the top 10 sites to download free website images based on quality and the diverse selection of photos available.

1. Unsplash

The license for Unsplash provides free use for the images for everything except for building a competing company to market the images.

2. Pexels

This free image website outlines what you can and cannot do with the photos you download, but you have few limitations on commercial use, which is why this website is great for commercial use. Read up on the Pexels license for more information.

3. Pixabay

Images on Pixabay have a Creative Commons Zero license, meaning you can use them without the need to ask permission or document that permission. You also don’t need to add attribution to the images.

4. Canva

Using Canva, you can download free images and add them to graphics templates for everything from lead magnets to social media graphics. To get access to more images, you’ll need to pay for a Canva subscription, but you’ll find that to be affordable. Plus, a subscription offers access to even more templates, icons, etc.

5. Life of Pix

Life of Pix features stunning high-resolution images. And if you like what you see, there’s plenty more from the free image website’s partner Adobe Stock. Life of Pix basically serves as a marketing tool for Adobe Stock, but you don’t have to buy anything to take advantage of the free images.

6. PicJumbo

Browse free images on PicJumbo or sign up for a subscription to get new images delivered directly to your inbox. The benefit of the email subscription is that you’ll get inspiration for images to place on your website or use in your marketing.

7. Death to Stock

Much like PicJumbo, Death to Stock offers a monthly email subscription that delivers new images to your email inbox. Unlike the cheesy stock photos where all subjects are smiling and looking at the camera, photos from Death to Stock offer creative and attractive images you won’t find anywhere else.

8. FreeImages

FreeImages offers hundreds of thousands of free photos. It does outline clearly how you can use those photos in its license, but you’ll find it fairly inclusive. So long as you aren’t selling the images or listing them for download, you should be able to use them in most website use cases.

9. Kaboompics

If you’re looking for brand images that fall within your color palette, Kaboompics is the place to go. You can search based on colors within the images to provide a cohesive website experience.

10. Stocksnap.io

Photos on this website are licensed under the Creative Commons Zero license, meaning they are free to download and use for both commercial and non-commercial use.

Need help making your website attractive and inviting for visitors? Kelly Website Design helps you convert more visitors into leads. Contact us now for a free quote.

Tips for Increasing Website Traffic

Written by Kaitlin Farris on December 5, 2021. Posted in Marketing, Social Media.

Many businesses set a goal of increasing website traffic year-over-year. But finding ways to increase quality visitors is challenging and takes work and strategy.

As a website management team, our clients often ask for tips to get more quality website visitors. We offer insights on how to improve your website traffic in practical, sustainable ways.

Post to Social Media

Social media can help build traffic to your website. But you’ll need a strategy for how often to post and to where.

Take advantage of groups where users are more engaged. Groups are most prevalent on Facebook and LinkedIn and can be fantastic for growing traffic. You’ll need to post new content in these groups regularly though to continue to see benefits.

LinkedIn is a powerful tool for publishing. Your connections know you on a personal level and will be likely to check out your content. Invite your employees to all share your content on their personal profiles to gain even more traffic.

Blogging

Blogging is something that most businesses try at some point. But the problem is, they don’t stick with it or start with a dynamic strategy. To make content marketing efforts really work for you, you need to do the following.

Create irresistible headlines. Even with the best SEO targeting, you’ll be one of 10 results a user sees. You need to entice them with great headlines to pick your article.
Target long-tail keywords. Many companies do some basic SEO research and target keywords that hundreds, if not thousands, of other businesses are already targeting. Instead, use long-tail keywords to reach the very specific audience who will benefit from your content.
Write content and create visuals that entice referral traffic. Getting links to your content will help build organic traffic to your site from other websites.

Write a Guest Blog

Guest blogs help in improving SEO value due to having more backlinks. But they also help in building awareness for your business with people who have no previous relationship with you. While it’s great to write for your own blog, writing for other blogs is also beneficial to grow your following.

Distribute Content via Email Marketing

If you build it, they may or may not come. Don’t rely on SEO too heavily to the point where you don’t take full advantage of your owned audience.

Email marketing, text messaging and social media are all great ways to reach existing fans and followers with your content. If you’re publishing blogs or content marketing of any kind and not emailing it out to your list, you’re missing out on a great opportunity.

Build a Community

One-way content is not nearly as inviting to return to as interactive content is. When you build a community, you have an excuse to reach back out to customers to ask their thoughts and input on various topics.

Communities can be through Facebook groups, forums or other website tools. Just be sure you’re monitoring and managing the community as failing to do so will make you look uninterested in the interactions.

And while you’re building communities, consider adding to other communities you don’t own. Interacting in comment sections can build awareness for your business and provoke some clicks from curious people who want to learn more.

Use Video

People engage with different kinds of content. Some people prefer to read a blog while others prefer to get their content from videos. YouTube is essentially a search engine for videos. Get more traffic to your website through posting videos.

And when you post those videos to your website, be sure to use schema markup. Ask your website team about video schema and the benefits it provides your website.

Purchase Well-placed Ads

Sadly, not all traffic-building efforts are free. But paying for well-placed ads can do wonders for generating the RIGHT traffic to your site. Ads help build your following and bring quality traffic to your website.

Think about ways you can use ads to build your owned audience, such as getting new social media followers or increasing your email marketing distribution.

If you need help building your website’s traffic, consult the Kelly Website Design team. We have extensive experience in building high-functioning websites that encourage repeat visitors. Contact us to learn more.

A Guide to Core Web Vitals and What They Mean About Website Health

Written by Kaitlin Farris on August 27, 2021. Posted in Website Design.

Google’s Core Web Vitals are a hot SEO topic. The update to Google’s algorithm began in June 2021. If you’ve seen declines in your rankings since this time, read on for a guide to how these changes may impact you.

What are Core Web Vitals?

Core Web Vitals are a way that Google analyzes your website’s user experience. The largest factors in these vitals are page speed and load time. But within these two aspects of core vitals you’ll need to consider:

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

We’ll explain what these three terms mean and how you can improve them to earn back your SEO rankings following this change to Google’s algorithm.

Largest contentful paint (LCP)

LCP measures how many seconds it takes from when a page begins loading to when the largest image or block of text shows on the user’s screen so that the user can interact with the content.

This Core Web Vital does not focus on the time it takes for the full page to load. While that metric is important, it is separate from LCP.

Here’s what you need to know about LCP and how Google reviews it to impact your rankings:

According to the new algorithm, your site’s LCP should be 2.5 seconds or faster.
Quality hosting on fast servers will be the most essential element in improving your LCP.
Poorly sized images or images that are extremely large are some of the biggest factors in your website’s LCP. Scale the images before uploading them to optimize this part of your website.

First input delay (FID)

FID measures the time it takes before a visitor’s first action on the site. Websites generally load from the top down, meaning a user can interact with the website before it fully loads. That way, users don’t have to sit there until everything is ready if they have a general idea of what they’re looking for.

Interactions could be button or link clicks, hovering over a dropdown, using a menu to navigate to another page or several other on-page actions. Google sees this as an important statistic because it provides even more details about the user experience on your website.

Here’s what you need to know about FID according to Google’s algorithm change.

Your FID should be 100 milliseconds or faster
JavaScript loading is generally the largest factor in FID. Having your website load the JavaScript only when needed can help speed up your FID and avoid blocking interactions on the page.

Cumulative layout shift (CLS)

CLS takes place when elements shift during page load. You might have experienced this when loading a page where an element shows up in one place at first, and then shifts as the page loads. It can be very frustrating for users because they try to click on one thing and end up clicking something else because everything shifted.

Here’s what you need to know about Google’s algorithm change and CLS:

Your CLS should be .1 or less
Poor coding is the main contributor to this issue on websites. When code is poor, it can change dimensions for images or videos. Or it can keep web fronts from loading.

Unsure whether Core Web Vitals are contributing to your lackluster SEO performance? Contact us for a free quote.