Are you looking to improve your website’s page loading speed? Optimising for Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) is a great way to do this. In this article, we’ll discuss the best practices and tips for optimising your website for LCP. You’ll learn how to measure LCP, minimise resources, compress assets, optimise images, stream video, and manage third-party scripts. Let’s get started!
Key Takeaways
- LCP is a crucial metric for measuring page loading performance and should be prioritised.
- Minimising resources, such as reducing requests and optimising file sizes, can significantly improve LCP.
- Compressing assets, like images and JavaScript files, can further reduce file sizes and improve loading times.
- Optimising text rendering, images, and video streaming techniques can also contribute to faster LCP.
- Find more resources here
Defining LCP
You’ve probably heard of LCP, but what exactly is it? Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) is one of the metrics used to measure page loading performance by Google. It refers to the time it takes for the main content of a web page to appear in the user’s browser. This content can be an image, a video, a text block, or any other main element that is visible to the user. LCP measures the time it takes for the content to appear on the page, from the moment the page request is sent until the content is rendered. It is one of the most important metrics for user experience, as it determines how quickly users can access the content they are looking for. To ensure a good user experience, the LCP should be as low as possible.
Measuring LCP
Measuring LCP is an essential step in ensuring a good user experience. It can be done using various tools such as the Chrome DevTools Performance tab. This will provide an audit of a webpage’s performance metrics and give an overview of how the page is doing in terms of loading speed. It will also show the Largest Contentful Paint metric, which is the time it takes for the biggest element on the page to be rendered. This metric is a great indicator of how quickly the page is loading and how well the user experience is.
Another way to measure LCP is by using a third-party tool such as WebPageTest. This tool will provide a more detailed analysis of the page’s performance, as well as a timeline of how the page is loading and the time it took for the largest element to be rendered. This can be useful for understanding any bottlenecks in the page loading process.
It is also possible to measure LCP with the help of Google Search Console. This tool allows you to see a report of page speed and performance, which includes the LCP metric. This can be useful for helping to identify and troubleshoot any issues with page loading speed.
Minimising Resources
Once you’ve measured LCP, the next step is minimising resources to ensure a faster page load speed. To do this, there are several best practices to keep in mind:
- Reduce the number of requests. Every resource your page requests adds more time to its loading time, so it’s important to reduce the number of requests. This includes reducing the number of images, scripts, and other types of files.
- Use caching. Caching is a great way to speed up your page by storing data so it doesn’t have to be fetched again. This can significantly reduce loading times and improve the user experience.
- Minimise the size of resources. The larger a file is, the longer it takes to load, so it’s important to ensure all of your files are optimised for size. This includes compressing images and minifying code.
Compressing Assets
Compressing your assets is a key part of optimising for LCP – it can drastically reduce loading times and improve user experience. It’s an effective way to reduce the file size of images, scripts, and other resources used on a website without sacrificing the quality of the content. By compressing assets, you can reduce the amount of data transferred between the server and the browser, resulting in faster page loading times.
Compressing assets is fairly straightforward. To begin, identify which assets need to be compressed. This can be done by examining the “Network” tab in your browser’s developer tools. Once you have identified the assets that need to be compressed, you can use a tool like ImageOptim to compress images or a tool like UglifyJS to compress JavaScript files.
It’s important to bear in mind that compressing assets is only one part of optimising for LCP. Other steps, such as minimising resources and using caching, are also important. Additionally, it’s important to be aware that compressing assets may not always result in a noticeable improvement in page loading times.
Text Rendering
Besides compressing assets, another important step in optimising for LCP is ensuring text is rendered quickly. There are several strategies one can use to ensure text loads quickly:
- Minify static HTML and CSS files: Removing unnecessary white space and comments can reduce the size of HTML and CSS files, allowing them to load faster.
- Use font-display: The font-display property allows you to control how font files are loaded and rendered. Setting font-display to “swap” or “fallback” can help ensure text is rendered quickly, even if the font file hasn’t been loaded yet.
- Preload fonts: Using preload tags can help ensure font files are loaded and rendered quickly.
In addition, using web fonts with smaller file sizes can also help reduce the time it takes for text to render. Finally, using web fonts that are hosted on a CDN can also help ensure text is rendered quickly, as the font files are stored in multiple locations and can be quickly accessed by users.
Optimising Images
Frequently, optimising images is also key in optimising for LCP. Image optimisation involves techniques such as compressing images, resizing images, and serving images in the right format. Compressing images can reduce their size by up to 80% without losing much quality. Resizing images allows you to serve images that are the right size for the device that they’re being viewed on. And serving images in the right format (e.g. JPEG, PNG, WebP) ensures that the image is being served in the most efficient way possible.
Using a good tool for image optimisation can help you automate many of these processes. Image optimisation tools can be used to reduce file size while preserving image quality, convert images into different formats, and resize images for different devices. Optimising images can help make your page faster and improve LCP.
You should also take into account the type of images that you serve on your website. Avoid serving large images if a smaller one will suffice. Larger images require more time to load, which can lead to a slower LCP. Additionally, you should avoid serving images with a lot of detail, as they tend to have larger file sizes.
Finally, you should consider using a content delivery network (CDN) to serve images. A CDN can help reduce the time it takes for images to load by caching them across multiple servers. This can result in faster loading times and improved LCP.
Video Streaming
Building on optimising images, another important aspect of optimising for LCP is video streaming. Video streaming can be one of the most challenging aspects of achieving a good LCP score. To make sure your videos stream as quickly and smoothly as possible, there are a few best practices you should follow:
- Compress your videos as much as possible without sacrificing quality.
- Use adaptive streaming technology to ensure videos play properly on any device.
- Make sure your video player is well-optimised and won’t slow down your page.
When it comes to video streaming, it is important to ensure that the videos are as small in size as possible. This not only helps with page loading speed, but also reduces the amount of bandwidth used. Compression technology has come a long way and can now reduce the size of a video file without sacrificing quality.
Using adaptive streaming technology is also important for achieving a good LCP score. This technology automatically adjusts the video quality based on the device and connection speed. This ensures that the video plays properly no matter what device or connection speed is being used.
Finally, it is important to make sure your video player is well-optimised. This is so that the video player doesn’t slow down the page. If the video player is not optimised, the page can take longer to load, which can result in a lower LCP score.
Third-Party Scripts
Dealing with third-party scripts can be tricky when optimising for LCP, so it’s important to take the necessary steps to ensure they don’t slow down your page. The best way to do this is to make sure that all third-party scripts are loaded asynchronously, meaning they are loaded in the background without blocking the loading of other content. Additionally, you should ensure that any scripts you are loading are minified and compressed. This will reduce their size, allowing them to load faster.
Finally, you should be judicious about the number of third-party scripts you are loading. Too many scripts can slow down your page, so try to keep them to a minimum. Whenever possible, it’s a good idea to look for alternatives to third-party scripts that are more lightweight and efficient. If you’re able to get the same functionality from a script that takes up less resources, that’s always the better option.
To further optimise your page, you can also preload third-party scripts. This allows them to be downloaded before the browser even requests them, improving their load time. Additionally, it’s important to keep your third-party scripts up-to-date. Outdated scripts can be a security risk, and can also slow your page down.
Conclusion
Maximising your LCP is key to creating a great user experience, and there are many steps you can take to get the job done. From minimising resources and compressing assets to optimising images and video streaming, you can take your website to the next level. With the right strategies in place, you’ll be well on your way to improving your LCP and delivering an exceptional user experience.
