Google Search 2021 Update to Put Emphasis on Site's Core Web Vitals-Here's How to Improve SEO [Guide]

Back in May 2020, Google announced changes in the company's search algorithm that is expected to be implemented this 2021. However, new updates usually make things more complicated for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) professionals.

StatCounter, a reliable web traffic analysis website, noted the dominance of the Google search engine, It highlighted that the search engine has an 81 percent market share for desktops and 94 percent on mobile.

Three Google Search Engine Metric Updates

There are three metrics, according to an article by builtin, that have changed when it comes to ranking websites from first to last and how Google presents the websites to users searching for certain websites.

The first metric calculates the loading time of a website, its images, content, videos and texts. As for the second metric, it measures how quick does a website respond to navigation, as well as the the length of delay which is the time between when a user would try to interact with content within the page.

Fionally, the third metric measures how a website's layout shifts during the loading process. This is called the cumulative layout shift.

Now, an article by Business2Community noted the other differences expected to come this May 2021 as Google rolls out its big searchupdate. According to the report, the techgiant is expected to focus more on "page experience"--especially the three Core Web Vitals.

Google Search 2021: What Are the Core Web Vitals?

As noted by the B2C report, the Core Web Vitals include the LCP or Largest Contentful Paint, which required loading time to be within 2.5 seconds.

Another Core Web Vitals are the FID or First Input Delay, which tracks the speed of interactiveness; and CLS or Cumulative Layout Shift, which requires a page's visual stability score to be less than 0.1

SEO Page Score

Along with the Core Web Vitals, a few factors like the site's code, hosting provider and number of images within a page will also be used to determine the site's ranking. As usual, mobile-friendliness, safe browsing and a secure HTTPS protocol is still necessary.

Google BERT

With the new update, sites need to put emphasis on BERT or Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers. Put simply, this technology helps match content to the searchers intent.

In order to ensure that your content is what users want and need, be sure to study what's ranking, categorize the search term's intent and understand customers' needs.

For example, when a user searches for "SEO Guide," content that provide actual SEO guide instead of SEO tools or service will rank better.

EAT guidelines

For what it's worth, SEO professionals agree that EAT will continue to be more crucial. Here's what sites need to have in order to rank high and stay that way on Google search engine:

• Expertise - demonstrate expertise to Google

• Authority - whether the website is perceived as reliable

• Trustworthiness - show credibility

Optimizing for Voice Search

On the other hand, as B2C reported, voice search could be crucial in the upcoming update. After all, a study made by Perficient reveals that 55 percent of people use voice search on their smartphones.

With that said, sites and developers can add a speakable schema markup, according to SearchEngineWatch. Optimizing website for long-tail conversational keywords is necessary, as well as optimizing local search for local business.

Studying analytics and data and writing content in a conversational manner, as if you're talking directly to a person, are a must.

Doing SEO Research

There are a whole lot of other ways to improve SEO. These techniques, however, vary depending on the company, the brand, the target audience, the language shared, and other factors. Considering that, here are a few ways to do SEO research and succeed.

• Find the core keywords

• Research competitors

• SWOT analysis

• Discover organic competitors

• Prepare list of keywords that are relevant

• Analyze search intent of keywords

• Answer unique question keywords

• Focus on search volume, ranking difficulty, relevant trends, and intent-based searches