What is First Contentful Paint?
First Contentful Paint (FCP) is the time from when a user starts loading a page to when the first piece of content — text, image or canvas — is rendered on screen. It measures perceived loading speed: how quickly the page appears to ‘start working’.
Why FCP matters
Slow first paint drives users away before content even appears. While FCP is not one of the three Core Web Vitals, it feeds the overall performance assessment and correlates with engagement and conversion.
How to improve FCP
- Reduce server response time and use a CDN.
- Eliminate render-blocking resources.
- Minimize and defer CSS and JavaScript.
- Optimize critical-path rendering.
Target
Google considers FCP under 1.8 seconds ‘good’. Measure with PageSpeed Insights or Lighthouse.
Related terms
How Social SEO Team can help
We speed up slow-loading sites. See our web development services.