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How to Set Realistic Core Web Vitals Goals (Updated 2025)

Published on April 16, 2025
Last Updated on June 18, 2025

Written by

Morgan Frank - Specialist in Page Speed

You’ve learned about Core Web Vitals (LCP, INP, and CLS) and why they’re crucial for user experience and SEO. Now it’s time to set realistic goals for your website and track your progress as you optimize.

This isn’t about chasing perfect scores; it’s about making meaningful improvements that benefit your users.

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Why Set Goals?

Setting goals is essential for several reasons:

  • Focus: It helps you prioritize your optimization efforts. You’ll know which areas need the most attention.
  • Motivation: Seeing progress towards your goals is motivating and keeps you on track.
  • Measurement: Goals provide a benchmark against which to measure your success. You can see how your changes are impacting your Core Web Vitals scores.
  • Realistic Expectations: It prevents you from getting discouraged by aiming for unrealistic perfection.

Google’s Recommended Thresholds: The Starting Point

Google provides recommended thresholds for each Core Web Vital:

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) :

  • Good: Under 2.5 seconds
  • Needs Improvement: 2.5 – 4.0 seconds
  • Poor: Over 4.0 seconds

Interaction to Next Paint (INP) :

  • Good: Under 200 milliseconds
  • Needs Improvement: 200 500 milliseconds
  • Poor: Over 500 milliseconds

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) :

  • Good: 0.1 or less
  • Needs Improvement: 0.1 0.25
  • Poor: Over 0.25

These thresholds are a great starting point, but they’re not one-size-fits-all.

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Setting Realistic Goals: Consider Your Context

While aiming for “Good” scores is ideal, it’s important to be realistic, considering:

  • Your Website Type: A complex e-commerce site with many features will likely have a harder time achieving the same scores as a simple blog.
  • Your Industry: Competitor analysis can be helpful. What are the typical Core Web Vitals scores in your industry?
  • Your Resources: Do you have the time, budget, and technical expertise to make significant changes?
  • Your Starting Point: If your current scores are very poor, aiming for “Needs Improvement” might be a more realistic initial goal.

Don’t get discouraged if you can’t achieve “Good” scores immediately. The goal is improvement, not perfection. Even small changes can make a big difference to user experience.

How to Set Specific Goals

1. Measure Your Current Performance: Use tools like PageSpeed Insights, Chrome DevTools, or a Real User Monitoring RUM tool to get your current Core Web Vitals scores. This is your baseline.

2. Identify Problem Areas: Which Core Web Vitals are the worst? Which pages or templates are performing poorly?

3. Set Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound (SMART) Goals:

  • Specific: Instead of “Improve LCP,” say “Improve LCP on the homepage.”
  • Measurable: Instead of “Improve LCP,” say “Improve LCP from 4.5 seconds to 3.0 seconds.”
  • Achievable: Set goals that are challenging but attainable within a reasonable timeframe.
  • Relevant: Focus on the metrics that matter most for your website and your users.
  • Time-bound: Set a deadline. For example, “Improve LCP on the homepage from 4.5 seconds to 3.0 seconds within the next three months.”

4. Prioritize: Focus on the areas that will have the biggest impact on user experience and SEO.

Example SMART Goal:

“Reduce the average CLS score on our product pages from 0.3 to 0.15 within the next two months by optimizing image sizes and reserving space for ads.”

Tracking Your Progress

Once you’ve set your goals, it’s crucial to track your progress regularly.

1. Use Monitoring Tools:

  • PageSpeed Insights: Provides lab data (simulated tests) and field data (real world user data, if available).
  • Chrome DevTools: Allows you to analyze performance in detail and identify specific bottlenecks.
  • Google Search Console: Provides Core Web Vitals reports based on real world user data.
  • Real User Monitoring (RUM) Tools: Collect performance data from your actual users, providing the most accurate picture of real-world performance. Examples include: Google Analytics, New Relic, Dynatrace, and SpeedCurve.

2. Track Regularly: Check your scores at least monthly, or more frequently if you’re making significant changes.

3. Document Your Changes: Keep a record of the optimizations you make and their impact on your scores. This helps you understand what works and what doesn’t.

4. Iterate: Page speed optimization is an ongoing process. Continuously monitor, test, and refine your approach.

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Dealing with Fluctuations

Core Web Vitals scores can fluctuate, especially in field data (real-world user data). This is normal. Factors like network conditions, device capabilities, and user behavior can all affect scores.

  • Don’t panic over small fluctuations. Focus on the overall trend.
  • Look for patterns. Are certain pages or templates consistently performing poorly?
  • Consider the 75th percentile. Google uses the 75th percentile of page loads for Core Web Vitals assessment. This means your scores need to be good for the majority of your users, not just on average.

Conclusion

Setting realistic Core Web Vitals goals and tracking your progress is an essential part of website optimization. It’s not about achieving perfect scores overnight; it’s about making continuous improvements that benefit your users and your search engine rankings. By following these steps, you can create a faster, more user-friendly website and track your success along the way

Shakeeb Sadikeen

The expert that experts learn from

About Author

Determined to change that, he built RapidLoad — a smart, AI-driven tool that empowers site owners to dramatically improve speed scores, enhance user experience, and meet Google’s Core Web Vitals without needing to touch a single line of code.
Check out the about page
Connect with Shakeeb Sadikeen

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