Website speed is a ranking factor: Core Web Vitals explained for owners

Google measures three things

Largest Contentful Paint (how fast the main content appears), Interaction to Next Paint (how fast the page reacts when someone clicks), and Cumulative Layout Shift (whether things jump around while loading).

Pages that pass all three get a measurable ranking advantage in competitive searches — and convert better regardless of rankings.

What usually breaks them

• Oversized hero images served at full resolution to phones
• Third-party scripts — chat widgets, trackers, tag managers — loading before content
• Web fonts swapping late and shifting the layout
• Page builders stacking render-blocking CSS

The fixes that move the needle

Compress and resize images first — it is usually half the problem. Then defer every script that is not essential to first paint. Then pre-load the one font you actually need.

Aura's website performance work starts with a measured audit and ends with green scores — not vague advice.