Do your Core Web Vitals scores really matter?
1st January, 2024
And if so, how much? The SEO scene seems to be divided on the matter; some insist that they’re extremely important, and some dismiss them as irrelevant. To further confuse matters, Google representatives insist that they’re only used as a “tie-breaker” to decide which of two equally good results should rank highest. So, should you care if you don’t score very well – especially if everyone else doesn’t, either?
Dismissing CWV performance because it’s ‘only a tie-breaker’ seems odd to me. In competitive niches, I imagine that many factors might be tie-breakers (individually, or collectively). The difference between winners and losers is often in the margins; a result might outrank another because it’s only slightly better on one or more otherwise not-enormous factors. Speed might be one of those, and as such, is worth paying attention to – even if it’s not the most important signal in isolation. You outrank your competitors by beating them on tie-breakers. That’s what competitive SERPs are/do, at a fundamental level.
SEO aside, there’s boundless research (like this great piece from eBay) to show that increasing the speed of your site can have a direct impact on conversion rates and revenue. Visitors who are less frustrated, less distracted, and more engaged are more likely to complete tasks and feel positive about their experiences. That could certainly be indirectly good for SEO, as those users exhibit positive behaviour signals, and are more likely to recommend, endorse, share, and so on. Unless you’re already blazing fast, making your site faster is almost certainly going to be a good investment.
Conversion aside, I think that it’s worthwhile focusing on improving your CVW scores for another, perhaps insidious reason – it forces you to air your dirty laundry and address all of the technical, operational and personnel problems that are holding back your SEO.
Interrogating why your website is slow can highlight that your web developers don’t know what they don’t know (and perhaps not as much as they think they do), but also gives them an educational roadmap. As they level up, that speeds up development processes, reduces bugs, and improves the overall quality of the site.
Identifying fundamental flaws and limitations in your technology stacks can shine a spotlight on how your CTO might be prioritising their favourite technology stack over providing good user experiences and begins to change the balance of power between them and marketing teams.
Highlighting the impact of third-party tracking and services identifies accessibility, legal and compliance risks that go otherwise unnoticed, and presents opportunities to improve how data is collected, managed and analysed.
The list goes on and on – to make a site faster, you have to address all of the underlying organisational reasons that it was slow in the first place. That can have a direct impact on SEO – as you unlock previously wasted resources and make technical improvements – but it can also have a transformative impact on the wider business, as you address core weaknesses and deficiencies that would otherwise have held you back.
Even if it is only a ‘tie-breaker’, speeding up a slow website remains one of the best things that you can do for SEO.
