How to improve your Largest Contentful Paint? Find out here!

Breaking news is all about speed and accuracy. But what if your website fails to load this news instantly? All your effort will go in vain in such a scenario, making the time game is even more crucial for publishers. This is why the page loading speed is of utmost importance for publishers worldwide. Determining how fast your site is loading could be challenging to find especially if you have low technical expertise. In fact, as a publisher, you may know how to drive up the Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) score but may lack the understanding of the best ways to optimize your website. 

In this blog, we will enlighten you about LCP, its impact on user experience and how you can improve it. 

What is the Largest Contentful Paint or LCP? 

LCP, or Largest Contentful Paint, is one of Google’s Core Web Vitals (CWV). It examines how fast a webpage’s main content is loaded. CWV are metrics that measure user experience on a webpage. There are three metrics, including Cumulative Layout Shift and First Input Delay. 

There are two elements to consider when it comes to LCP:

1. Page Experience 

Page Experience focuses on looking at relevant issues or hindrances to your visitors and determining the best ways to fix them. Additionally, speed and other factors can influence how users experience your website. A web and mobile app development company can further guide you on the same. 

2. Largest Contentful Paint  

LCP basically answers the most crucial question, “how fast”. People who use your website don’t care when a DOM is inspired. Users only care about when a page is usable or when they think it is functional. LCP gives you those insights, allowing publishers to optimize their ads. 

How to measure LCP metrics? 

The measurement unit of LCP is second. It is the duration between the very first bite on the loaded page and the final Largest Contentful Paint event. As soon as users interact with a page on your website, this time window closes, and LCP is no longer measured.  

Just like the other part of the page experience, every page has its own LCP score. You may experience poor LCP on the homepage but excellent on your articles or product pages. It doesn’t impact the performance of other pages. Also, remember that LCP is just one aspect of user experience. 

The image below will enlighten you about the LCP score:

Tips to improve LCP score 

Now you have a bit of an understanding of how LCP is measured; we will share some reasons for low LCP and ways to improve your score. Here we go! 

Slow server 

LCP is measured from the browser’s first bite until a user’s interaction. If your server is slow, there is a high chance you will inflate your LCP before the browser code starts running.  

You need to minimize server operations and only keep what is essential. Make sure your CMS is caching pages instead of rebuilding them on each request. Also, ensure that your static files are served with caching headers to reduce the number of files your server sends out. 

Slow networks 

A slow network can run your website performance. Using a Content Delivery Network (CDN) is essential to curb this. CDNs can quickly serve cached copies of your content on the server, enabling faster content loading. 

Most popular CDNs have data centres, but you should constantly assess your individual requirements before selecting a CDN. So, what other alternatives are there to improve LCP? Keep reading! 

Front End Code 

LCP isn’t measured after an interaction takes place. It means the elements present on the initial part of the page are more responsible for LCP. So, the initial viewport of your page should be rendered as fast as possible, and you can reduce what is loaded to achieve this. 

Try removing unnecessary scripts/stylesheets in the head of your documents that go unused on the page. They can slow the loading and deteriorate LCP. Also, avoid using overly complex or unnecessary scripts.

Collaborate with a reputed Ad service provider 

Poorly optimized ads can lead to lower LCP. A reputed ad service provider can provide you with quality ad codes. Make sure these codes are optimized correctly. Also, always remove unused codes and employ lazy loading on your ads. Due to all these reasons, working with an established SSP or monetization partner is essential. 

Conclusion 

Apart from LCP, many other factors also contribute to user experience. As a publisher, you need to know all the aspects of user experience. This blog has covered almost everything related to LCP and how you can improve this metric. With a good LCP, you can always provide the best user experience while welcoming more interaction on your pages. More interactions mean more conversions and revenue! 

As a cross-platform app development company, we can always help you improvize the Core Web Vitals. We have even designed an amazing tool (Diagnostic tool) that will quickly provide you with a detailed report on your website performance, including all the Core Web Vitals. 

To know more in this regard, call us today!