What It Is

What Is a Core Web Vitals Audit?

The Core Web Vitals audit focuses on three Google-defined metrics: Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), Interaction to Next Paint (INP), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). Together they form Google's Page Experience signal — a confirmed ranking factor since 2021.

What separates our CWV audit from running PageSpeed Insights yourself is the depth. We pull real-world Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) field data, layer in lab data from Lighthouse, and then trace every failing metric back to its specific cause — a render-blocking script, a layout-shifting font swap, an oversized hero image, a third-party tag, a hydration delay in your JS framework.

The deliverable is a fix list ranked by impact-per-engineering-hour, so your dev team ships the changes that move the score first, not the changes that look easiest.

Quick Facts

  • Starting at $399
  • Manual review by senior US-based auditor
  • 30–60 page report with screenshots & fixes
  • 30/60/90-day implementation roadmap
  • Optional video walkthrough
  • 7-day money-back guarantee
Start Your Audit
What We Analyze

Every Signal Reviewed Manually

Largest Contentful Paint

What's your LCP element? Hero image, headline, video poster? We trace and fix.

Interaction to Next Paint

INP replaced FID in March 2024 and is much harder to pass. We diagnose JS execution blocks.

Cumulative Layout Shift

Find every element shifting layout — fonts, ads, late-loading images, dynamic content insertions.

Server Response Time

TTFB analysis — your CDN, edge cache, origin response, and database query times.

Render-Blocking Resources

CSS and JS that block first paint — what to defer, async, or inline.

Image Optimization

Modern formats (WebP, AVIF), responsive srcset, lazy loading, fetchpriority hints.

Our Process

How Our Audit Works

1

Field Data Pull

CrUX real-user data for your top URLs across the last 28 days.

2

Lab Testing

Lighthouse audits on key page templates with throttled network and CPU simulation.

3

Root-Cause Trace

Every failing metric traced to its specific code or asset.

4

Engineering Roadmap

Fixes ranked by score impact ÷ engineering effort.

Deliverables

What You Receive

  • Executive summary — one-page version for stakeholders.
  • Full audit report (PDF) — every issue, screenshot, fix, and priority.
  • Editable spreadsheet — sortable issue tracker for your dev team.
  • 30/60/90-day implementation roadmap.
  • Video walkthrough on Growth and Enterprise plans.
  • 30-minute strategy call with the senior auditor.
Who Needs This

Best For

Sites with poor PageSpeed scores

Below 50? An audit pays back in months from improved rankings alone.

Image-heavy or media-rich sites

Magazines, e-commerce, photography portfolios — image strategy is the single biggest CWV lever.

JavaScript-heavy applications

React, Vue, Next.js apps with hydration delays causing INP failures.

Why It Matters

Why This Audit Matters in 2025

Search has become measurably more competitive in 2025. Google's algorithms now process queries through more sophisticated language understanding, AI-driven retrieval, and stricter quality bars. The sites winning today aren't necessarily the ones with the biggest content libraries or the most backlinks — they're the ones with the cleanest technical foundations and the most useful, well-organized content for users.

Our core web vitals audit engagements consistently surface the same pattern: well-run businesses with strong products and competent teams are losing search visibility not because their content is bad, but because dozens of small, fixable issues compound into a structural disadvantage. The audit makes those issues visible and gives you the exact, prioritized path to address them.

For most clients, the return on a single audit pays back within 60–90 days through reclaimed organic traffic, improved conversion from faster pages, and reduced wasted spend on content or links that can't rank because of underlying issues.

We've built our methodology over 12 years of in-the-trenches work — through every major Google update from Panda and Penguin to the Helpful Content rollouts and the 2024 INP transition. The checklist we apply has been refined audit by audit. When you receive your deliverable, you're receiving the cumulative learning of 500+ engagements.

If your team has the discipline to implement the recommendations, the results are predictable.

Pricing

Starting at $399

Client Story

What This Audit Achieves

★★★★★

""Our LCP went from 4.8s to 1.9s and INP from 380ms to 140ms after their roadmap. Organic traffic on our top 100 URLs is up 31% — directly attributable to CWV passing.""

Aaron Klein
Head of Engineering, Brightwave Media (Portland, OR)
FAQ

Common Questions

CWV is a confirmed ranking factor but it's a tie-breaker more than a primary signal. The bigger impact is conversion and bounce rate — faster pages convert more, which lifts engagement signals Google does weight heavily.
Google's "Good" thresholds: LCP under 2.5s, INP under 200ms, CLS under 0.1. Hit all three at the 75th percentile of users and you pass.
FID only measured the first input — INP measures every interaction across the entire session. JavaScript-heavy apps that passed FID often fail INP.
Some easy wins exist — image compression, removing unused plugins, lazy loading — but most CWV improvements require code-level changes.
We deliver the audit and roadmap. Implementation help is available at $99/hour or we can recommend trusted partners.
Tools & Methodology

The Tools We Use for Your Core Web Vitals Audit

Screaming Frog

Industry-standard crawler for comprehensive technical analysis

Ahrefs

Backlink data, keyword research, competitive intelligence

Semrush

SERP intelligence and keyword opportunity mapping

Google Search Console

Real Google performance and coverage data

PageSpeed Insights

Core Web Vitals and performance metrics

Lighthouse

Lab-based audits for performance & accessibility

Sitebulb

Advanced crawl visualization & reporting

Chrome UX Report

Real-user Core Web Vitals field data

We pay for the top tier of every commercial tool — no free-trial limits, no sampled data, no incomplete reports.

Sample Report Preview

What Your Core Web Vitals Audit Report Looks Like

Core Web Vitals Audit ReportSample Preview

Executive Summary

Health Score: 68 / 100
Critical Issues: 12
High Priority: 28
Quick Wins: 15
Pages 1–4 of a typical 30–60 page deliverable

Every Report Includes

  • Executive Summary — one-page overview for stakeholders.
  • Detailed Findings — every issue with screenshots and fix instructions.
  • Prioritization Matrix — Critical → High → Medium → Low.
  • Code Snippets — copy-paste-ready solutions for your developers.
  • Editable Spreadsheet — issue tracker for your team.
  • 30/60/90-Day Roadmap — sequenced action plan.
  • Video Walkthrough (Growth & Enterprise) — auditor-narrated explanation.
Comparison

Why Manual Audit Beats Tool-Generated Audit

AspectTool-Only AuditOur Manual Audit
Issue identification1,000+ raw flagsFiltered to ~80 real issues
False-positive removal✓ 60-70% of analysis time
Business-impact prioritizationGeneric severity✓ Traffic × revenue × effort
Industry-specific context✓ Always included
Implementation guidanceBrief mentions✓ Code samples + screenshots
Strategy consultation✓ Live 30–60 min call
Money-back guarantee✓ 7-day unconditional
Implementation

Your 30/60/90-Day Implementation Roadmap

Every audit ends with a sequenced roadmap your team can ship against. Here's the typical pattern.

Days 1–30

Quick Wins & Critical Fixes

Your first sprint focuses on the audit's critical issues — the ones that move rankings fastest. Typically 8–15 implementation items.

  • Fix broken/redirect chains
  • Resolve indexation blockers
  • Ship priority on-page rewrites
  • Address critical schema issues
Days 31–60

High-Priority Improvements

With critical fixes deployed, the second sprint tackles high-priority structural improvements that compound over time.

  • Content depth improvements
  • Internal linking restructure
  • Core Web Vitals optimizations
  • Backlink cleanup if needed
Days 61–90

Optimization & Measurement

By the third sprint you're measuring ranking lift, optimizing what's working, and planning the next round of improvements.

  • Performance measurement
  • Medium-priority deployments
  • Content expansion roadmap
  • Delta re-audit at 90 days
Common Mistakes

Mistakes Teams Make Implementing This Audit

Easy fixes first, not impact fixes first

Teams often start with the easiest items because they feel productive. But easy doesn't mean impactful. Our prioritization is built around traffic and revenue impact, not effort — follow it in order for fastest results.

Stopping after Critical issues

Critical fixes get you back to baseline. High and Medium priority items are what push you ahead of competitors. Plan for the full 90-day roadmap, not just the first sprint.

No measurement plan

Without baseline metrics (rankings, organic traffic, Core Web Vitals scores), you can't prove the audit paid off. We provide a measurement framework — actually use it.

Skipping the strategy call

The 30-minute call after delivery is where the report becomes actionable. Skipping it means missing the context that turns recommendations into a real implementation plan.

Locations We Serve

Core Web Vitals Audit for Businesses Worldwide

Senior US-based auditors serving clients across 40+ countries. Click your city for localized details.

Ready to Get Started?

Talk to a senior US-based auditor today.