Unlock faster load times and boost your rankings: the power of optimising LCP

What are Core Web Vitals?

Core Web Vitals are a set of metrics introduced by Google to help webmasters understand and improve the user experience. They play a significant role in determining how visitors perceive your site. Core Web Vitals consist of three metrics:

1. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Measures how quickly the largest visible element (such as an image, video, or text block) on your web page fully renders.
2. First Input Delay (FID): Tracks the time from a user's first interaction to when the browser responds.
3. Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): Captures any unexpected shifts in your page's layout during loading.

While all three metrics are crucial for user experience, today, we'll focus on LCP - the metric that most directly impacts how fast your website feels to your visitors.

Why is Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) so important?

The speed at which your main content loads can make or break a visitor's experience. LCP is crucial because it represents how quickly users can engage with your site. If your LCP exceeds Google's recommended 2.5 seconds, visitors may perceive your website as slow and are more likely to leave. This can lead to higher bounce rates and lower search engine rankings.

Improving LCP: the best practices you need to know

We now know why ensuring a good LPC score is important. But how do you optimise your web pages with this in mind? Here are our top tips:

1.    Optimise images and media

Large images are often the main culprits behind slow load times. So, make sure to compress images, use next-gen formats like WebP, and make sure you're using responsive image sizes to suit different devices.

2.    Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

A CDN stores copies of your assets in multiple locations worldwide, reducing the distance between the user and your server. This accelerates content delivery, leading to a faster LCP.

3.    Minimise JavaScript and CSS blocking

JavaScript and CSS files can slow down the rendering of your page. Minify these files, compress them, and defer non-critical JavaScript to prevent unnecessary delays.

4.    Reduce server response time

A fast server means faster load times. Use caching, and optimise your server infrastructure to ensure a swift response.

5.    Lazy load images

Implement lazy loading to ensure off-screen images are loaded only when needed, helping your primary content appear faster.

Our approach: how we help clients optimise LCP

We take a data-driven approach to help our clients improve LCP. This approach includes:

Tracking LCP elements

We utilise clients' tag management systems to monitor LCP elements across their websites. This data feeds directly into analytics tools, pinpointing exactly which elements need optimisation.

Leveraging the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX)

We use Google’s CrUX reports – a report which compiles data from Chrome browsers around the world into Core Web Vitals – to access real-world performance data from actual users. With Chrome being the most popular web browser worldwide, this user-centric data gives a good overview of the impact of our efforts to optimise websites for LCP over time.

Combining analytics with CrUX Data

By merging analytics data with CrUX insights, we perform a detailed analysis of LCP elements, offering a refined and targeted approach to enhancing performance.

The bottom line: why optimising LCP matters

In short, improving your LCP not only boosts your Core Web Vitals and CrUX score but also ensures a seamless, engaging experience for your users. This leads to better search engine rankings, higher conversion rates, and ultimately, more satisfied visitors.