What is Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)?

Largest Contentful Paint is a Core Web Vitals metric that measures how long it takes for the largest image or block of text in the viewport to render after a page starts loading. Google treats 2.5 seconds or less as good, measured at the 75th percentile of real visits.

What counts as the largest element

Usually the hero image, a background image, a video poster or a large heading. The browser updates the candidate as the page loads and stops reporting new ones at the first user interaction.

Common causes of a slow LCP

A slow server response, CSS or JavaScript that blocks rendering, a hero image that is too large or loaded lazily, and web fonts that hold back text. Serving files from a CDN shortens the first step.

How to improve it

Give the hero image a high fetch priority and serve it in a modern format such as AVIF or WebP at the right size. Inline critical CSS, defer scripts that the first view does not need, and never lazy load the LCP element.

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