Google ranks what users feel. Core Web Vitals is how it measures that feeling — three numbers, each with a story.
LCP: how fast the page looks loaded
Largest Contentful Paint should land under 2.5 seconds. The usual fix is boring and effective: compress images, preload the hero font, and kill render-blocking scripts.
INP: how fast the page responds
Interaction to Next Paint measures responsiveness. Long JavaScript tasks are almost always the culprit — split them, defer them, or delete the plugin causing them.
CLS: how much the page jumps around
Cumulative Layout Shift is the ‘I clicked the wrong button’ metric. Set width and height on every image and embed, and reserve space for ads and banners.
Get these three green and you have done 80% of the performance work that matters.
