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Speed

Main content loads too slowly

What this means for your business

Your main content — like your hero image or headline — takes too long to appear on screen. Visitors often give up and close the tab before they even see what your business offers. Google also uses this as a ranking signal, so slow pages can hurt your search position.

How to fix it
Hard
2–4 hours

  1. 1The LCP element is almost always your largest hero image or main headline at the top of the page — that's what to focus on first.
  2. 2Compress that hero image using Squoosh (squoosh.app) or TinyPNG — both free. Aim for under 200KB. This alone can cut 2–3 seconds off load time.
  3. 3Convert the image to WebP format — it's 30–50% smaller than JPG at the same visual quality. Most image tools now export WebP directly.
  4. 4Make sure the image isn't set to lazy-load. Images above the fold should load immediately, not wait until the user scrolls.
  5. 5Use a CDN so the image is served from a server close to the visitor. Most hosts (Cloudflare, Vercel, Netlify) offer this automatically or via a free plan.
  6. 6Remove or delay non-essential scripts (chat widgets, social share buttons, ad trackers) — they compete with your image for bandwidth.

On WordPress

Install the free Perfmatters or WP Rocket plugin. Enable "Preload LCP Image" and connect to Cloudflare or the Cloudflare CDN plugin to serve images globally.

On Shopify

In your theme editor, check the hero section image settings. Use the Shopify image optimizer (it converts to WebP automatically). Add fetchpriority="high" to the hero image in your theme's liquid file.

Pro tip: Most sites see a bigger LCP improvement from compressing and converting their hero image than from any other change. Do that first before anything else.

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