Google Core Web Vitals remain a key ranking factor in 2025. Learn what LCP, CLS and INP mean for your Cheshire business and how to improve your scores.
Google's Core Web Vitals have been a confirmed ranking factor since 2021, and they remain one of the most technically important elements of any serious SEO strategy in 2025. Yet the majority of business websites in Cheshire — and across the UK — still fall short of the thresholds that Google considers "good." If your site is one of them, you are almost certainly losing rankings and customers as a result.
Core Web Vitals are a set of three specific metrics that Google uses to measure real-world user experience on your website. They form part of Google's broader Page Experience signals, alongside HTTPS security, mobile-friendliness, and the absence of intrusive interstitials.
LCP measures how long it takes for the largest visible element on your page — typically a hero image, heading, or large block of text — to fully load. Google's threshold for a "good" LCP is under 2.5 seconds. Most business websites in Cheshire score between 4 and 8 seconds on mobile, which places them firmly in the "poor" category.
The most common causes of poor LCP: unoptimised images (particularly large hero images served without compression or modern formats like WebP), render-blocking JavaScript and CSS, slow server response times, and lack of browser caching.
CLS measures visual stability — specifically, how much the page layout shifts unexpectedly as it loads. You will have experienced this yourself: you go to click a button and suddenly the page jumps and you click something else entirely. Google considers a CLS score below 0.1 to be "good." The most common causes are images without defined dimensions, dynamically injected content, and web fonts that load after the initial page render.
INP replaced First Input Delay (FID) as a Core Web Vital in March 2024. It measures the responsiveness of your page to all user interactions throughout the entire page lifecycle — not just the first one. A good INP score is under 200 milliseconds. Poor INP is typically caused by heavy JavaScript execution that blocks the browser's main thread.
The most accessible tool for auditing Core Web Vitals is Google PageSpeed Insights, available free at pagespeed.web.dev. Enter your URL and you will receive both lab data (simulated results) and field data (real-world data from Chrome users). Focus on your mobile scores — this is what Google primarily uses for ranking decisions.
For more detailed diagnostics, Google Search Console's Core Web Vitals report shows you which specific pages on your site are failing, and why. This is invaluable for prioritising fixes when you have a large site.
If your competitors are outranking you for keywords like "plumber Cheshire" or "accountant Knutsford," there is a real possibility that their Core Web Vitals scores are contributing to their advantage. Google has been clear that, all other things being equal, a better page experience will win.
The good news is that most Core Web Vitals issues are fixable without a complete website rebuild. Image optimisation alone typically produces dramatic improvements in LCP scores, and it can usually be done in a few hours of focused technical work.
If you would like CMC to audit your site's Core Web Vitals and produce a prioritised action plan, get in touch today. We offer free technical SEO audits for businesses across Cheshire and the North West.