Your LCP is 4.2 seconds. Here's how to fix it in an afternoon.
A practical guide to the single most impactful Core Web Vital
“Google has been penalizing slow sites since 2021. Most site owners still haven't fixed it.”
LCP measures how long it takes for the largest visible element on your page to load. Google's threshold: under 2.5 seconds is "good". Over 4 seconds is "poor".
The most common culprits:
1. Hero images that aren't preloaded Add a preload link tag in your HTML head. This alone typically cuts LCP by 0.5–1.5 seconds.
2. Render-blocking JavaScript in head Move non-critical scripts to the bottom of the body, or add defer/async attributes.
3. No CDN (serving assets from a single origin server) Use Cloudflare's free tier. It takes 15 minutes to set up and can cut load times in half.
4. Images not in WebP format WebP is 25–35% smaller than JPEG/PNG. Most CMS platforms can convert automatically.
The fastest win: add a preload link for your hero image. This alone typically cuts LCP by 0.5–1.5 seconds.