Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals are a set of performance metrics defined by Google to measure the user experience of a web page. They became official Google ranking factors in 2021. There are three: Largest Contentful Paint measures how quickly the main content of a page loads, Interaction to Next Paint measures how quickly the page responds to user interactions, and Cumulative Layout Shift measures visual stability, which tracks whether elements jump around as the page loads.

For care home websites, mobile Core Web Vitals are the most important because the majority of care searches happen on mobile devices, often by family members searching urgently. A page that loads slowly, responds sluggishly to taps, or shifts content around as it loads creates a poor experience that Google factors into rankings.

The most common causes of poor Core Web Vitals on care home websites are large, uncompressed images (as a single hero photo that has not been resized can add several seconds to load time), render-blocking JavaScript (scripts that prevent the page from displaying until they have loaded), and third-party embeds that load slowly and shift page layout. Most generic care home website platforms produce poor Core Web Vitals by default.

Google Search Console provides a Core Web Vitals report that shows which pages have poor, needs improvement, or good scores. Addressing the issues flagged there, typically image optimisation and script management, produces measurable improvements within a few weeks of Google re-crawling the affected pages.