FCP (First Contentful Paint) too high

The First Contentful Paint (FCP) is too slow. Users see a blank page for too long before the first content appears.

Why it matters

An FCP > 3s is rated "poor". Users abandon pages that do not display quickly - the bounce rate increases by 32% for each additional second.

How to fix

  1. 1

    Reduce Time to First Byte (TTFB)

    TTFB is the time the server takes to respond. Enable PHP cache (OPcache), use a caching plugin (WP Rocket, LiteSpeed Cache) and verify your hosting is performant.

  2. 2

    Enable Gzip/Brotli compression

    Compression reduces HTML weight by 70-80%. Enable it via your hosting provider or via .htaccess. See the server compression article.

  3. 3

    Reduce critical CSS

    WP Rocket and LiteSpeed Cache offer a "critical CSS" feature: essential CSS is inlined in the <head> for the first render, the rest is loaded asynchronously.

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