Core Web Vitals sound like something only a developer should worry about. They are not. They measure something every visitor feels within seconds. Is this website fast, smooth and stable, or slow and annoying?
Google uses these scores to help decide who ranks. Your customers use the same feeling to decide whether to stay. Here is what they mean, in plain English.
The three scores
There are three Core Web Vitals. Each one measures a different part of the experience.
Largest Contentful Paint
How long the main content takes to appear. If your hero image or headline takes four seconds to show up, that is a poor score. Aim for under two and a half seconds.
Interaction to Next Paint
How quickly the site responds when someone taps or clicks. Press a button and nothing happens for a moment? That lag is what this measures.
Cumulative Layout Shift
How much the page jumps around as it loads. You go to tap a link, an image loads above it, and the whole page shifts. Annoying, and it is measured.
Why this costs you money
People do not wait. A slow site loses visitors before they read a word. They bounce back to Google and click the next result. That is a lost enquiry, and Google notices the pattern.
Speed is not a vanity metric. It is the difference between a visitor who stays and a customer who leaves.
What usually slows a site down
The usual suspects are simple:
- Huge, unoptimised images
- A hero video that loads on mobile
- Too many plugins and scripts
- Cheap, overloaded hosting
Most of these are fixable without a rebuild.
How to check yours
Run your site through Google’s PageSpeed Insights. It gives you the three scores and a list of what to fix. Start with the biggest wins, usually images and hosting.
Fast sites are not luck. They are built and maintained that way.
Read next: Five quick wins for a website that isn’t converting and why image optimisation matters.
Want to know your scores? We run a free audit that shows exactly what is slowing you down. Claim your free audit.
