Core Web Vitals Explained: How Site Speed Affects Your Google Maps Ranking
July 8, 2025
What are Core Web Vitals in 2025?
LCP – Largest Contentful Paint (loading)
INP – Interaction to Next Paint (interactivity, replaced FID)
CLS – Cumulative Layout Shift (visual stability)
Google labels each URL as Good, Needs Improvement or Poor using real-world Chrome data.
Why speed affects local rankings
Google’s local algorithm weighs relevance, distance and prominence. Slow pages tank user engagement (high bounce), which lowers prominence. Internal tests at SEO Lab show Map Pack visibility improving within 30 days of cutting LCP in half.
Case study: 8 s ➜ 2 s = +69 % contact clicks
A Wollongong civil contractor’s homepage dropped from 8.3 s to 2.5 s LCP after we:
Served a mobile-only hero at 480 px WebP
Lazy-loaded gallery images
Deferred three unused theme scripts GBP Insights showed website clicks jump from 4 to 14 the next month.
Install a lightweight theme – Astra or Kadence over bloated page-builders.
Remove unused plugins (anything that hasn’t been updated in 6 months).
Pre-connect to fonts.gstatic.com if you’re loading Google Fonts.
When to call a pro
If you’ve hit the quick wins and LCP still reads “Needs Improvement”, it’s time for a deeper dive—critical CSS extraction, server-level caching or even hosting migration.
Next step
Run your home page through PageSpeed Insights. If LCP is red, claim a free 5-point snapshot—we’ll tell you exactly what to fix.
