What is Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)?

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) measures how long it takes for the biggest visible element on the page — usually your hero image, banner or main headline — to finish loading. It is the closest single number to “how long until this page looks ready”:

• Good is under 2.5 seconds — measured at the 75th percentile of your real visitors, so a fast result on your office fibre does not count if most customers are on mobile.
• Slow LCP is usually one heavy element — an unoptimised hero image, a slow server response, or render-blocking CSS holding everything up.
• The fix is targeted — compress and properly size the hero image, never lazy-load it, and serve it early.

LCP is the metric most small-business sites fail on, and almost always because of one oversized image. Sort out your hero image and you have usually sorted out LCP.