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Core Web Vitals: The Only Metrics That Matter for SEO

Google Cares About Speed. So Should You.

Core Web Vitals became ranking signals in 2021. In 2025, they are the baseline.

The Three Pillars

  • LCP (Largest Contentful Paint): Under 2.5s. Measures loading performance.
  • INP (Interaction to Next Paint): Under 200ms. Measures responsiveness.
  • CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift): Under 0.1. Measures visual stability.

How We Hit Green

  1. Critical CSS inlined. Above-fold renders before external stylesheets load.
  2. Zero render-blocking JS. Scripts deferred or module-loaded.
  3. Images: WebP/AVIF, sized, lazy-loaded. No layout shift, ever.
  4. Font display: swap. Text visible during font load.
  5. Server: nginx + PHP-FPM + Redis object cache. TTFB under 200ms.

Real Results

Client migration from Elementor to custom theme: LCP 4.2s → 1.1s. Organic traffic +34% in 90 days.

Want your vitals green? Book an audit.

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