Core Web Vitals explained: make your site faster

Core Web Vitals are Google's way of measuring how fast and smooth your website feels to real visitors. They affect search rankings, but more importantly, they affect whether people stay and buy.

The three measurements

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): how long the main content, often a big image or heading, takes to appear. Aim for under 2.5 seconds.
• Interaction to Next Paint (INP): how quickly the page reacts when someone taps or clicks. Aim for under 200 milliseconds.
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): how much the page jumps around while loading. Aim for under 0.1.

How to check your site

Run your pages through Google PageSpeed Insights, and look at the Core Web Vitals report in Google Search Console, which shows data from real visitors over time.

Quick wins for faster loading

• Compress images and use modern formats such as WebP or AVIF.
• Give images a width and height so space is reserved before they load.
• Load only the scripts each page needs, and delay chat widgets and trackers.
• Use good hosting with caching and a content delivery network.

Making pages respond instantly

Slow reactions usually come from heavy JavaScript. Remove plugins you do not use, split large scripts, and avoid long tasks that block the page while someone is trying to use it.

Keep it fast

Speed slowly gets worse as new features, images and tracking codes are added. Check your scores every month and treat a drop as a bug to fix.