Largest Contentful Paint, or LCP, is a web performance metric that measures how long it takes for the largest content element on a page to load. A good LCP score means that your page is loading quickly and efficiently, providing a good user experience for your visitors.
In this guide, we’ll explore what Largest Contentful Paint is, why it’s important, its benefits and how you can improve your LCP score.
What Is LCP & It’s Important?
LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) is a measure of page speed; it tells you how long it takes for the main content of a page to load. A good LCP score is important for a smooth user experience, and it can also impact your SEO. A slow LCP can cause users to bounce from a page before they even see the content, which is why it’s important to keep an eye on your Largest Contentful Paint and make sure it’s as fast as possible.
Google’s Core Web Vitals update is a welcome change for those of us who have been advocating for a more holistic approach to ranking.
One of the most important aspects of the update is the increased focus on Largest Contentful Paint (LCP). Google has said that the update will be rolled out gradually, with the bulk of sites seeing the impact in early 2021. So if you’re looking to improve your rank on the SERPs, now is the time to start focusing on LCP.
The LCP only applies to the main content above the fold. That includes any images, videos, or blocks of text. This is important to keep in mind when optimizing your website, as you want to make sure that the main content is visible as soon as possible.
What is Good & Poor LCP
If your page doesn’t load within the first 2.5 seconds, you’re likely to decrease your search engine ranking. Google’s search algorithm is designed to identify slow-loading pages, so make sure it is important to your page load as quickly as possible.
If your page loads the main content in 2 seconds then the score can say good, if it loads in 4 seconds then it requires improvement and if it loads more than 5 seconds then we say bad score.
In order to ensure a good user experience, Google has stated that pages should aim to have an Largest Contentful Paint that ranks as “good” at least 75% of the time. This means that if you have a page with a large image, you should make sure that the image loads quickly most of the time. If you have a page with a lot of text, you should make sure the text loads quickly most of the time, etc.
What Drives Poor LCP?
There are many factors that can contribute to a poor LCP score. Some common causes include large file sizes, slow server response times, and render-blocking resources.
1). Large file sizes: One of the most common causes of poor LCP scores is large file sizes. If your images, videos, and other files are too large, it will take longer for them to load, which will result in a poor LCP score.
2). Slow server response times: Another common cause of poor LCP scores is slow server response times. If your server is taking too long to respond to requests, it will impact your LCP score.
3). Render-blocking resources: Also a common cause of poor Largest Contentful Paint score is render–blocking resources. If there are resources that are blocking the rendering of your page, it will tend low LCP for your website.
How to Fix it
If you’re given the task of improving largest Contentful Paint for a website, there are a couple of fixes you can try. Some are easy and some are harder than others, but all have the potential to improve LCP. Here are a few:
1). Optimize Your CSS
While it is generally true that CSS files are resources that can block rendering, there are a few important exceptions to this rule.
First, if the CSS is used to display critical content above the fold, it may be necessary to ensure that the CSS is loaded before rendering begins. Second, if the CSS is used to display content that is not required for the page, but which is needed to provide a better user experience, it may be worth loading the CSS asynchronously or using a technique called “lazy loading” to only load the CSS when it is needed.
2). Optimize Your Images
You can optimize your image by:
– Compressing it
– Convert it to a more efficient forms
– You can use videos rather than GIF
– Make sure your images have the perfect dimension
3). Optimize Your WebFonts
Whenever you use a font on your website, make sure you optimize the file size to ensure fast loading times. Large font files can slow down your website, so it’s important to keep them as small as possible. You can do this by using a compression tool or by converting the font to a web-friendly format.
4). Optimize Your JavaScript
JavaScript can be a great tool for making your web pages faster. But if you’re not careful, it can also be a major performance bottleneck. You can minify your code to reduce the size of your JavaScript files. You can also optimize your code for loading speed by using asynchronous loading and caching techniques.
Discovering Your Largest Contentful Paint
To check your score with the tools provided by Google, you can also use other web performance tools to help you identify areas for improvement. These tools can help you track your Largest Contentful Paint score over time and see how your website is performing relative to other websites.
Some of the tools you can use include the PageSpeed Insights tool and the Lighthouse tool. Both of these tools will give you a report on your website’s performance and provide recommendations on how to improve your Largest Contentful Paint. Also with Core Web Vitals which is present on the left side top in Search Console, You can overview URLs.
