Practical Strategies to Reduce CLS for Better SEO Performance

To reduce Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) for better SEO performance, implement these practical strategies:

• Specify Image and Video Dimensions: Always define explicit width and height attributes for images and videos in your HTML or CSS. This reserves the correct space before media loads, preventing unexpected layout shifts.

• Reserve Space for Dynamic Content and Ads: Allocate fixed minimum heights or widths for third-party apps, ads, embeds, and iframes using CSS. This prevents content from shifting when these elements load dynamically.

• Optimize Font Loading: Use the font-display CSS property (e.g., swap or fallback) and preload fonts to avoid layout shifts caused by late font rendering. Choose fallback fonts similar to your web fonts to minimize shifts.

• Optimize CSS Loading: Load critical CSS upfront rather than lazy-loading it to ensure styles are applied early, reducing layout instability.

• Use CSS Transforms for Animations: Apply animations using CSS transform properties instead of changing layout-affecting properties like top, left, or margin to avoid triggering layout shifts.

• Maintain Consistent Aspect Ratios for Responsive Images: Use the srcset attribute with consistent width-to-height ratios for responsive images so browsers can allocate space correctly across devices.

These strategies collectively improve visual stability, enhancing user experience and positively impacting SEO rankings by reducing CLS scores.