What is Cumulative Layout Shift?
According to Google’s own web developer page:
“Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) is an important, user-centric metric for measuring visual stability because it helps quantify how often users experience unexpected layout shifts—a low CLS helps ensure that the page is delightful.”
Essentially, your CLS score refers to how much movement of elements occurs while your page is loading for a customer. If an image, product, link, or chunk of text moves as the page loads, it will lead to a bad customer experience; thus, Google has made a high cumulative layout shift score vital to a websites success both in search engine optimization (SEO) and PPC.
You can see on the left, our CLS passes Google’s Speed Test. The 4 screenshots of the page loading show how things do not move much, if at all, as elements load.
Why Is Slow CLS Bad?
A slow CLS means things move around on your site while it loads, which is very bad for user experience.
Movement of images, links, and text can confuse and frustrate users. It’s possible a customer is trying to click a link or a product, then it moves, and they either click the wrong link or product, or lose their spot, causing frustration. This will drive customers right to your competitors.
How Does A High CLS Score Help With Google Ad Spend?
Cost Per Click (CPC) refers to the price Google charges you to show your ad to a potential customer, if they click on it. Ads with higher quality landing pages get discounts on how much they pay per click, which includes those with fewer page load issues, including cumulative layout shift.
Data has shown you can receive up to a 50% discount on the cost per click. Really bad pages have seen up to 400% extra in CPC.
How Do I Improve My Cumulative Layout Shift Score?
Your cumulative layout shift score is an element of your Core Web Vitals and page speed. Google has recently made this a very important ranking factor, as websites with failing scores provide poor customer experiences.
If your score is too low, you will need to fix it. Usually professional programming and coding of your website’s template or theme.
If you are truly serious about improving your cumulative layout shift score, along with other page speed issues you may have, CONTACT US today! You can save money on your Google Ads CPC, as well get a leg up on your search engine optimization competition by just fixing this issue.
