Yes. Yes, you should. And here’s why.

Google’s new Core Web Vitals are three key factors that the search engine believes are crucial to the user’s overall experience of your website. They will soon play a huge role in determining where your pages rank in the organic listings… and if, indeed, they rank at all.

To find out whether the pages on your site is delivering value to readers and performing as it should, Google will assess them using the following main search signals:

#1: Loading (technical term: Largest Contentful Paint)

This metric measures how long it takes for each page to load. Ideally, your pages should be ready for viewing in less than 2.5 seconds.

#2: Interactivity (technical term: First Input Delay)

This evaluates the responsiveness of your pages; crucially, the time that passes between a first interaction (for example, clicking a link) and the browser actually processing the event and providing you with the content you requested.

#3: Visual Stability (technical term: Cumulative Layout Shift)

This identifies any unwanted layout shifts while content areas are being loaded. These kinds of shifts can, for example, cause buttons to jump around the screen while the elements are being prepared. (They’re most common on ad-heavy websites, and they’re annoying, to say the least.)

To see how your website scores in each area, and to browse Google’s own recommendations as to how you can improve these metrics yourself, check out the Core Web Vitals report in your Search Console dashboard.

These Core Web Vitals are by no means the only factors Google will consider when it is evaluating the usability and indexability of your pages. From scouring your site for an up to date SSL certificate to analysing whether interstitial pop-ups are interrupting your user’s experience or malware is posing a risk to your visitors, Google will perform around two hundred mini analyses before deciding on its fate in the SERPs. This is why it’s so important to make sure your site is correctly optimised and technically sound, with the help of an onsite SEO specialist.

Don’t panic, though. You’ve got a bit of time to bring your pages up to scratch – Google isn’t going to officially launch its new ‘page experience’ algorithm update until May 2021. You can learn more about the rollout in Google’s own post here.