How to fix Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
Speed1 min readFixes 2 checks lcp, crux-lcp
LCP measures how long the biggest visible element — usually a hero image or headline — takes to appear. Google wants it under 2.5 s for 75 % of visits. On most sites the fix is one oversized image.
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Check your own site
Runs these 2 checks and the other 185, free, in about 45 seconds.
What a passing site looks like
- Largest Contentful Paint: passesfail · −25 ptseffort M
- Real-user Largest Contentful Paint: passesinfo onlyeffort M
1. Largest Contentful Paint
Why it matters. LCP is when the biggest thing on screen — usually the hero image or headline — finishes loading. Visitors judge "is this site slow?" on it, and Google uses it for ranking.
How to fix it.
- Find the LCP element (named in your report) and make it lighter, earlier or both — a compressed WebP/AVIF, sized to the screen, without lazy loading.
- Preload it with <link rel="preload" as="image"> or add fetchpriority="high" on the <img>.
- Cut what comes before it — render-blocking CSS/JS and slow server responses push LCP back.
2. Real-user Largest Contentful Paint
Why it matters. LCP is when the biggest element on screen finishes loading. Google's threshold for "good" is 2.5 s at the 75th percentile of real Chrome users.
How to fix it.
- Find the LCP element in the Speed module and make it smaller, earlier or both.