Core Web Vitals for B2B Marketers

Core Web Vitals are Google's three performance metrics: Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), Interaction to Next Paint (INP, replaced FID in 2024), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). They are a confirmed Google ranking factor and a real user experience signal. Most B2B marketing teams have never seen the metrics for their own site.

LCP measures how quickly the main content visually loads. Target: under 2.5 seconds. Common fixes: optimize the hero image (compress, serve WebP/AVIF, use modern image CDN), defer non-critical CSS, reduce server response time, and use a CDN.

INP measures how quickly the page responds to user interactions. Target: under 200ms. Common fixes: reduce JavaScript bundle size, defer non-critical scripts, optimize third-party tags (analytics, chat widgets, advertising pixels), and avoid synchronous JavaScript.

CLS measures how much the page layout shifts during load. Target: under 0.1. Common fixes: set width and height on all images, reserve space for ads and embeds, avoid injecting content above existing content. Audit your homepage and top landing pages with PageSpeed Insights or Search Console's Core Web Vitals report. Fix the worst metrics first. The conversion impact compounds with the SEO impact.