User experience has never been more important than it is today. Search engines like Google have ways of analysing how users interact with a website, and negative experiences can directly impact your organic performance in the search engine results pages (SERPs).We've all been there — eagerly clicking a link, only to be met with sluggish load times and unresponsive interfaces. It's the digital equivalent of waiting in line at a coffee shop; patience wears thin, and frustration brews.To help website owners combat this, Google introduced its Core Web Vitals - a set of important metrics that look at various factors to determine how response your site is, its page performance, and, most importantly, a user’s experience of the page they access. Most website owners are already familiar with CWV metrics, available in Google Search Console, and as of March 2024, Google has introduced an entirely new metric called Interaction to Next Paint (INP), which will replace the familiar First Input Delay (FID) as part of the Core Web Vitals — a trio of metrics deemed crucial by the digital gods at Google for determining the overall health of a website.What does this change mean and how can website owners address INP issues? Let’s find out! So, What Exactly is INP?Interaction to Next Paint (INP) is a new critical metric in Google's Core Web Vitals, representing the time it takes for a webpage to respond to a user's input, such as a click or tap, and begin rendering the next visual change. In simpler terms, it measures the delay users experience from interacting with your site to seeing the subsequent visual response.Unlike First Input Delay (FID), which INP replaces, this metric offers a more comprehensive view of the user experience. It considers not only the delay in response but also how quickly the page starts visibly updating. INP directly impacts the perceived interactivity of your website; a lower INP score indicates a more responsive and user-friendly experience, contri...