• Home
  • Advice
  • Introducing Core Web Vitals Monitoring: A New Feature in Your Store Tools

Introducing Core Web Vitals Monitoring: A New Feature in Your Store Tools

We’re excited to introduce a brand-new feature in our Your Store Tools suite for BigCommerce stores — Core Web Vitals (CWV) Monitoring! This tool allows you to track your website’s performance over time, helping you stay ahead of the game when it comes to optimizing your site for both users and search engines. But why is this important? Let’s break it down.

Why Core Web Vitals Matter

In recent years, Google has placed increased emphasis on user experience as part of its ranking algorithm. Core Web Vitals are a set of performance metrics that Google uses to measure how users experience your site. In other words, they affect how well your site ranks in search results and how satisfied your visitors are when browsing your site.

There are three key Core Web Vitals:

  1. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) – This measures how quickly the main content on your page loads. The target is to have the most visible part of your content load within 2.5 seconds.
  2. First Input Delay (FID) – This looks at interactivity, tracking how quickly the page responds when a user first tries to interact. Your site should aim for a response time of less than 100ms.
  3. Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) – This measures the stability of your content as it loads. Ever had text or images move around as the page finishes loading? That’s a poor CLS score. The ideal score is less than 0.1.

These metrics help ensure that your website loads quickly, remains stable, and is easy for visitors to interact with. A good CWV score can lead to better rankings on Google, more organic traffic, and a better overall user experience.

Screenshot

Introducing the Core Web Vitals Monitoring Tool

To help you keep track of these important metrics, we’ve launched the Core Web Vitals Monitoring tool within Your Store Tools. Now, you can monitor the performance of key pages on your site and ensure that your CWV scores remain optimal.

With the new Core Web Vitals Monitoring tool, you can set up URLs to monitor daily. The tool runs automatically once per day at a time you choose, ensuring you always have up-to-date insights into your site’s performance.

Whether you’re on our Basic (free) plan or our Premium plan, there’s an option that fits your needs:

  • Basic Plan (Free): Monitor 1 URL, ideal for small businesses or startups.
  • Plus Plan: Monitor up to 3 URLs, great for growing stores.
  • Premium Plan: Monitor up to 25 URLs, perfect for larger businesses or stores with a wide range of pages to track.

At a minimum, we recommend monitoring your home page, a category page, and a product page to ensure that your key pages are performing optimally.

One of the best features of this tool is its ability to track how your scores change over time. Our historical reports and graphs make it easy to monitor your site’s performance across weeks, months, or even quarters. This helps you understand how site updates, new plugins, or design changes impact your Core Web Vitals and other key metrics.

It’s Not Just About Performance

While Core Web Vitals focus on performance, our tool also provides insights into several other important areas of your website. With Your Store Tools, you’ll also be able to monitor:

  1. Performance Score
    This looks at how quickly your pages load and become interactive. It takes into account factors like First Contentful Paint (when the first bit of content loads) and Time to Interactive (when your page is fully interactive).
  2. Accessibility Score
    This score measures how accessible your website is for all users, including those with disabilities. This includes things like text-to-background contrast, alternative text for images, and proper HTML structure for screen readers.
  3. SEO Score
    Google’s SEO score measures how well your page is optimized for search engines. Factors such as meta tags, mobile responsiveness, and structured data all contribute to this score. A well-optimized site can rank higher and attract more traffic.
  4. Best Practices Score
    This score checks if your website follows modern web development and security practices. It looks at things like using HTTPS, avoiding deprecated APIs, and ensuring images load efficiently.

By tracking these additional metrics alongside your Core Web Vitals, you get a comprehensive view of your site’s overall health.

Why Monitoring Is Essential for Your Business

Keeping an eye on Core Web Vitals isn’t just a “nice to have”—it’s essential for maintaining your website’s health and ranking well in search engines. Here are a few reasons why monitoring your CWV scores with Your Store Tools is a smart move:

  • Stay Ahead in SEO: Since Google now uses CWV as part of its ranking algorithm, having good scores can give you a competitive edge.
  • Improve User Experience: Websites that load faster and are more stable lead to higher user satisfaction and lower bounce rates.
  • Track Progress Over Time: With our historical tracking and reporting, you can see how your site’s performance improves (or worsens) over time, helping you make informed decisions.

The Core Web Vitals Monitoring tool is available now for all Your Store Tools users! Whether you’re just starting with the Basic Plan or are managing a larger store with Premium, you’ll find this tool invaluable for ensuring your website performs at its best.

Ready to get started? Log in to Your Store Tools today and set up your CWV monitoring to keep your site in top shape!

If you have any questions or need help setting up the new feature, our support team is here to assist you.

Leave a Reply