Core Web Vitals — LCP, INP, and CLS — are confirmed ranking factors for Google. They matter more on competitiv

Core Web Vitals — LCP, INP, and CLS — are confirmed ranking factors for Google. They matter more on competitive queries where quality signals are close between top results.

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): how fast the main content of the page loads. Target under 2.5 seconds. Most commonly impacted by large unoptimized images or slow server response.

Interaction to Next Paint (INP): replaced First Input Delay. Measures how responsive a page feels to user interactions. Heavy JavaScript that blocks the main thread is the usual culprit.

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): measures unexpected layout movement. Pages that shift as ads load or images render without defined dimensions score poorly. Target under 0.1.

Practical first steps: run PageSpeed Insights on your most important pages. Fix LCP first — it's almost always image compression and a CDN. Then address CLS by defining image dimensions in CSS. INP comes last and usually requires JavaScript optimization.