How to Optimise for Large Contentful Paint
If you’ve been in these blogs long, you know that LCP, or Large Contentful Paint, is a core metric in Google's Core Web Vitals that measures how quickly the largest content element on a webpage becomes visible to users. It has been touted as a ranking factor on Google and optimising it has become essential for businesses looking to improve their SEO performance. In today’s SEO Premier blog, we will explore why LCP matters, elements contribute to it, common challenges, and proven strategies to optimise this important performance metric.
What is Large Contentful Paint (LCP)?
LCP is one of Google's three Core Web Vitals, along with First Input Delay (FID) and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). Unlike other loading metrics, which may track different stages of page rendering, LCP specifically measures how long it takes for the largest visible content element to fully load. This could be an image, video, or large block of text, and it’s often the piece of content that users are most likely to interact with.
The reason LCP is so critical lies in user perception. When a page’s main content appears quickly, visitors are more likely to stay engaged, browse the site, or make a purchase. Conversely, slow LCP leads to frustration, higher bounce rates, and lost revenue opportunities. Therefore, optimising for LCP should be a top priority for any business serious about delivering a better user experience.
To effectively optimise LCP, it's important to know which elements typically contribute to it:
Images – High-resolution images, background images, or hero banners can slow down loading time if not optimised.
Video Embeds – Large media files like videos, especially when they autoplay, can cause delays in rendering the main content.
Text Elements – Large font sizes or complex web fonts can delay the rendering of text content.
Background Images in CSS – Often used for aesthetic purposes, background images load later in the page-rendering process and can contribute to slow LCP.
Large Blocks of HTML or Flash Content – Legacy HTML tags and other slow-loading page elements can negatively impact LCP.
By identifying the largest contentful element on each page, you can start now narrowing down areas for improvement.
Why LCP Matters for SEO
Google’s emphasis on LCP stems from a simple idea: speed matters. In today’s standards, users expect pages to load quickly. Research shows that even a one-second delay in load time can reduce conversions by up to 7%. Given this, it’s no surprise that Google integrated LCP into its ranking algorithm to reward websites that provide a faster, more seamless experience.
But beyond SEO, LCP is also critical for user satisfaction. If users have to wait more than 2.5 seconds for the main content to appear, they're more likely to abandon the page and never return. This not only affects bounce rates but also your website’s overall conversion rate, customer loyalty, and retention. Ultimately, the goal is to keep users engaged and satisfied, and optimising for LCP is a significant part of that equation.
Proven Steps to Optimise LCP
Once you've diagnosed your website or pages with slow LCP, there are several steps to improve it. Here are the most effective methods:
1. Optimise and Compress Images
Images are usually the largest content elements on a webpage, and optimising them can make a significant difference. Use modern formats like WebP, which provides better compression and smaller file sizes without compromising quality. Also, implement lazy loading to defer loading offscreen images until they are needed. Compressing images through tools like ImageOptim or TinyPNG can further reduce file sizes and improve LCP.
2. Leverage Content Delivery Networks (CDNs)
A Content Delivery Network (CDN) can distribute your site’s assets to servers closer to your users, drastically reducing server response times. By serving content from a location closer to the user, the browser can download and render the largest content element faster. Popular CDNs like Cloudflare, Fastly, and Akamai are widely used for this purpose.
3. Improve Server Response Time
Server response times can make or break LCP. Minimise Time to First Byte (TTFB) by optimising your server setup, using caching solutions, and upgrading to a more performant hosting service. Switching to faster server technologies like HTTP/2 or HTTP/3 can also enhance performance by allowing multiple file requests to be sent simultaneously.
4. Eliminate Render-Blocking JavaScript and CSS
JavaScript and CSS files can block the rendering of your page’s largest contentful element, leading to higher LCP times. Minify and compress CSS and JavaScript files to reduce their size. Also, prioritise loading critical CSS inline and defer non-critical scripts by using async or defer attributes in your HTML code. This will allow the browser to focus on rendering the most important elements first.
5. Use Preloading for Critical Resources
Preloading can significantly improve the speed at which essential resources like fonts, CSS, and hero images are loaded. By telling the browser to prioritise these files, you can ensure the largest content element loads faster. The link rel="preload" directive is particularly useful for this, because it forces the browser to fetch the most important assets as soon as possible.
6. Reduce Client-Side Rendering
Client-side rendering frameworks such as React, Angular, and Vue.js are notorious for slowing down LCP due to their heavy reliance on JavaScript. You can counter this by implementing server-side rendering (SSR) or static site generation (SSG), where the server delivers pre-rendered HTML to the browser, resulting in faster content loading. For frameworks like Next.js or Nuxt.js, switching to SSR can lead to significant performance improvements.
Truth is, optimising for Large Contentful Paint is no longer optional in today's SEO-driven landscape. With the right tools, strategies, and ongoing effort, optimising LCP becomes not just a technical necessity but an opportunity to improve the overall user experience and drive better business results. Take the next steps toward it.
