What are Core Web Vitals? The Most Critical Metrics for Improving SEO Performance in 2025.
Core Web Vitals are Google's most important performance standards for measuring user experience. These metrics, which determine how quickly a website loads, how stable the user interaction is, and how seamless the visual layout is, are among the ranking criteria that will hold a significant place in the SEO world by 2025. For businesses in particular, Core Web Vitals optimization means increased conversion rates, reduced advertising costs, and a lasting strengthening of organic search visibility.
This article will provide comprehensive answers to many questions, such as what Core Web Vitals are, why they are important, what updates are coming in 2025, and how you can optimize your website based on these metrics. If you want to create a performance-driven digital marketing strategy, Core Web Vitals are essential.
What are Core Web Vitals?
These are the three key performance metrics that Google created to measure user experience:
These three key metrics are:
1. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
It measures the loading speed of the largest piece of content on a page.
Target time: Under 2.5 seconds.
2. First Input Delay (FID) / 2025 Update: INP
It is the delay time until the user interacts with the page.
In 2025, INP (Interaction to Next Paint) will replace FID.
Target time: Below 200 ms.
3. Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
It measures image or content shifts on the page.
Target value: Below 0.1.
These three metrics directly impact rankings in terms of both SEO and user experience.
Why are Core Web Vitals Important?
Optimizing core web vitals plays a critical role not only for SEO but also for conversion rates and digital advertising costs.
It directly affects SEO ranking.
Google has officially adopted these metrics as a ranking criterion.
Enhances User Experience
Fast-loading, non-scrolling pages keep visitors on the site longer.
It increases the conversion rate.
Even a one-second speed improvement can lead to a 1TP-3T10-20 conversion increase on e-commerce sites.
It reduces advertising costs.
Meta Ads and Google Ads quality scores are directly affected by site speed.
Core Web Vitals Updates in 2025
✔ FID has been completely removed → INP (Interaction to Next Paint) has been added
Google now generates a single score that takes all user interactions into account.
✔ Mobile-first assessment has been further strengthened
In Google Lighthouse and PageSpeed results, mobile performance now carries more than of weight.
✔ Visual optimization criteria have been improved.
Support for AVIF and WebP formats has become an advantage.
✔ JavaScript load density has become more important.
In JavaScript-based sites like React and Vue, INP scores are becoming even more critical.
How are Core Web Vitals measured?
You can use the following tools:
Shows mobile and desktop scores.
Google Search Console → Core Web Vitals Report
You can view the overall status of the site.
Lighthouse (Chrome DevTools)
It conducts detailed performance audits.
WebPageTest
It provides a more professional level of speed analysis.
How to Improve Core Web Vitals?
A. LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) Improvements
• Convert images to WebP or AVIF format.
• Use a CDN
• Apply lazy load
• Reduce server response speed (TTFB < 200 ms)
B. INP (Interaction to Next Paint) Improvements
• Reduce excessive JavaScript executions.
• Load scripts using async/defer.
• Minimize third-party scripts
• Minify CSS and JS files
C. CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) Improvements
• Be sure to define width/height values for images.
• Set a fixed height for advertising spaces.
• Minimize font swaps (font-display: swap)
Optimizing Core Web Vitals on WordPress Sites
This section is particularly important because most of the Ehelp.com.tr and Eres Medya projects are WordPress-based.
Recommended Add-ons:
• LiteSpeed Cache
• WP Rocket
• ShortPixel or Imagify
• Performance
• Cloudflare CDN
Theme Selection Suggestion:
Lightweight themes like GeneratePress, Kadence, and Blocksy are ideal for Core Web Vitals.
Core Web Vitals for E-Commerce Websites
Speed optimization is even more critical in systems like WooCommerce, Shopify, or OpenCart.
Things to keep in mind:
• Filtering and variant scripts should be optimized.
• Product images must be compressed.
• Server capacity must be high
• The checkout page should be kept simple.
How should you interpret Core Web Vitals reports?
In Google Search Console:
• Pages marked "Improvement needed" → Should be prioritized.
• “Bad URLs” → harm SEO
• Mobile performance always comes first.
The Future of Core Web Vitals and Beyond 2025
Google is placing more and more emphasis on user experience each year. By 2026–2027, site speed will be as critical as content quality.
Conclusion
Core Web Vitals are the heart of modern SEO. You can't gain a competitive advantage if your website isn't fast, stable, and user-friendly. With professional performance optimization, you can both increase conversions and experience significant leaps in organic visibility.
“"Let us analyze your website's Core Web Vitals scores for free!"”
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