Core Web Vitals Explained for Business Owners

Core Web Vitals are Google's metrics for loading, responsiveness and visual stability.

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

LCP measures how long the largest visible element, often a hero image or headline, takes to appear. Google's threshold for a good experience is 2.5 seconds or less at the 75th percentile of visits. Slow servers, large images and render-blocking CSS are the usual causes.

Interaction to Next Paint (INP)

INP measures how quickly a page responds to taps, clicks and key presses across a visit. It replaced First Input Delay as a Core Web Vital in March 2024. Good INP is 200 milliseconds or less; heavy JavaScript and long tasks on the main thread are common problems.

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

CLS measures unexpected movement of content while a page loads, such as a button jumping when an ad appears. A good score is 0.1 or less. Reserving space for images, embeds and banners prevents most layout shifts.

Practical ways to improve

Serve correctly sized, compressed images; preload the main hero image; defer non-essential scripts; reduce third-party tags; and use a content delivery network. Fix shared templates first, because one change can improve many pages.

Where to check your scores

Search Console's Core Web Vitals report shows real-user data grouped by URL patterns. PageSpeed Insights shows both field data and lab diagnostics for individual pages. Use field data for decisions and lab data for debugging.

Frequently asked questions

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