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How to improve First Contentful Paint (FCP)

Speed1 min readFixes 2 checks fcp, crux-fcp

FCP is the moment the first text or image appears. Under 1.8 s feels instant. Slow servers and render-blocking CSS and fonts push it out.

Step by step, with screenshots: Critical CSS: is it still worth doing in 2026? →

Check your own site

Runs these 2 checks and the other 185, free, in about 45 seconds.

What a passing site looks like

  • First Contentful Paint: passesfail · −10 ptseffort M
  • Real-user First Contentful Paint: passesinfo onlyeffort M

1. First Contentful Paint

Why it matters. FCP is when the first text or image appears. Until then visitors see a blank page and cannot tell whether the site is working.

How to fix it.
  1. Speed up the server response and remove redirects before the page.
  2. Inline critical CSS and defer the rest; drop render-blocking scripts from <head>.
  3. Serve the HTML compressed (Brotli or gzip) from a CDN close to your visitors.

2. Real-user First Contentful Paint

Why it matters. When real visitors first see something on screen. Google's threshold for "good" is 1.8 s at the 75th percentile.

How to fix it.
  1. Remove render-blocking resources and speed up the server; see the FCP finding above.

Filed under Speed & Core Web Vitals. Copy is generated from the same catalogue that scores every report, so what you read here is what the report says.