Google is known for making major algorithm updates that come out of nowhere and shake up the search results. As with everything in life, there are winners (those who gained rankings) and losers (those who lost them).
What Google is not known for is using a megaphone weeks and months in advance to alert webmasters to a major algorithm update such as what they’re about to roll out in May 2021: its “Core Web Vitals” algorithm update.
Core Web Vitals (CWV) includes multiple variables and was introduced earlier this year as an upcoming major update at Google that will no doubt register high on the Richter scale in terms of search placement volatility. The main components of CWV measure how users experience a page’s speed, responsiveness, and visual stability. Google will use these metrics as organic ranking signals to identify high-quality pages that provide an excellent user experience.
Since we are not WordPress experts when it comes to improving page load times, we looked far and wide for a company that could boost our mobile and desktop scores ahead of Google’s upcoming update.
After careful review, we chose a WordPress maintenance service company, WP SitePlan, which said they would make our scores soar into the “90s” on both mobile and desktop… and they were right!
Before WP SitePlan:
After WP SitePlan Page Speed Optimization:
In anticipation of this update, it made perfect sense to employ the WordPress page speed optimization professionals at WP SitePlan. Their onboarding process was a breeze, and at $50/month for their page speed services, it was a no-brainer.
If you’re concerned about your own WordPress page speed scores, here are the tools we used to run the before-and-after tests:
Not only did WP SitePlan’s page speed services improve our page speed score in both desktop and mobile environments, it will also ensure our site will be met with a warm embrace when Google launches its CWV update. The increased speed may also improve conversion rates, since users will have a much faster browsing experience on the site.
