Optimize Your Website’s Performance: The Key to Better Rankings
Google’s continuous tweaks to its core search algorithm have significant implications for website owners. Soon, overall web performance will play a crucial role in determining page rankings. To stay ahead of the curve, it’s essential to understand the metrics that Google uses to evaluate website performance.
Web Vitals: The Metrics That Matter
Google’s Web Vitals initiative focuses on three key metrics that affect user experience: Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). In this article, we’ll delve into the world of CLS, exploring its significance, causes, and solutions, with a special emphasis on Next.js apps.
What is Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)?
CLS measures the total layout shift score for every unexpected layout shift that occurs during a page’s lifespan. A layout shift happens when a visible element changes its position between two rendered frames. Simply put, CLS measures the shifts between components when a page loads, ultimately represented by a layout shift score.
Common Causes of Layout Shifts
Layout shifts are often caused by ads/embeds, dynamically injected content, and images without dimensions. Let’s examine each of these cases and explore effective solutions.
Ads and Embeds: A Source of Income and Frustration
Ads are a crucial revenue stream for many websites, but they can also cause significant layout shifts. To mitigate this issue, create an empty container as a placeholder for the ad, indicate maximum dimensions for the ad, and avoid removing the placeholder if no ad is returned.
Dynamically Injected Content: A Recipe for Disaster
Dynamic content can cause layout shifts, especially if it’s injected without placeholders. To combat this, use an optimized placeholder container and consider implementing a skeleton UI. This approach ensures a smooth user experience, even when content is loaded dynamically.
Images Without Dimensions: A Simple yet Critical Fix
Images without predefined dimensions are a common cause of layout shifts. To resolve this issue, add height and width attributes to image tags. For responsive designs, use the CSS aspect-ratio property to maintain the aspect ratio between attributes.
Fixing CLS in Next.js: Leveraging Built-in Features
Next.js, a progressive framework built on React, provides built-in features to address CLS issues. The Image component, for instance, makes height and width required props, ensuring that developers maintain aspect ratios. Additionally, the Layout component can be used to create a basic layout structure for all pages, minimizing layout shifts.
Bonus Tip: CLS and Styled-Components with Next.js
When using styled-components with Next.js, be mindful of the potential for huge layout shifts. To avoid this, use babel-plugin-styled-components and the styled-components ServerStyleSheet in the _document.js file to apply styles on the server side.
The Importance of Optimizing CLS
By implementing these techniques, you can significantly reduce layout shifts in Next.js apps, resulting in better SEO, a smoother user experience, and increased customer satisfaction. Don’t neglect this critical aspect of web performance optimization – your users will thank you.
LogRocket: The Ultimate Tool for Next.js App Debugging
Debugging Next.js applications can be challenging, especially when issues are difficult to reproduce. LogRocket provides full visibility into production Next.js apps, allowing you to monitor and track state, automatically surface JavaScript errors, and track slow network requests and component load time. Try LogRocket today and take your app’s performance to the next level.