A Guide to Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals — LCP, INP, and CLS — aren't just numbers Google measures in the background anymore; they're a direct reflection of how your users experience your site.

LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) measures how long it takes for the page's largest visual element to render. The most effective fixes: mark the critical image with `priority`, avoid unnecessary third-party scripts, and lean on static generation wherever possible.

INP (Interaction to Next Paint) measures how quickly the interface responds when a user clicks something. Avoiding heavy JavaScript that blocks the main thread directly improves INP.

CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) measures how much content 'jumps' while the page loads. Always giving images and media a fixed size or aspect ratio drives this metric close to zero.

When you treat these three metrics as a design philosophy rather than a checklist, both user experience and search ranking improve together.