What It Is
Core Web Vitals are three measurements Google uses to judge how a page feels to real visitors. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) measures how quickly the main content appears. Interaction to Next Paint (INP) measures how quickly the page responds when someone taps or clicks; it replaced an older metric, First Input Delay, in 2024. Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) measures how much the page jumps around while loading.
Why It Matters for Your Business
These scores reflect frustrations every visitor knows: a slow hero image, a button that lags or a page that shifts just as you tap, so you hit the wrong link. Google uses them as part of its ranking signals, though great content still matters more. For a contractor whose customers search on phones, a fast, stable page keeps more of them from leaving.
Good to Know
Tip: check your scores in Google Search Console or PageSpeed Insights, which use data from real Chrome users when enough is available. Common fixes include compressing large images, setting image dimensions, reducing heavy plugins and scripts, using caching and choosing quality hosting. Focus on the pages that bring in the most visitors first.