Claire is analyzing her website’s Core Web Vitals and notices that LCP is occurring at 10 seconds, which is much longer than what Google recommends. Which of the following elements could be contributing to slowing down Claire’s page?
- A pop-up banner, appearing halfway down the page
- A navigation menu with more than 7 items
- An embedded video below the page header
- A non-responsive website design
Explanation: The correct answer is An embedded video below the page header. LCP, or Largest Contentful Paint, measures the time it takes for the largest content element on a webpage to become visible within the viewport. A delay in LCP indicates that crucial content is taking too long to load, potentially leading to a poor user experience. In Claire’s case, the presence of an embedded video below the page header could be a significant contributing factor to the slow LCP. Videos, especially if they are large or hosted on external platforms, can significantly increase page load times, particularly if they are positioned near the top of the page where they are immediately visible to users. As a result, the browser prioritizes loading the video content, causing other page elements to be delayed in rendering, thus prolonging the LCP. Claire should consider optimizing the video file size, leveraging lazy loading techniques, or deferring its loading until after critical above-the-fold content has loaded to improve the page’s LCP and overall user experience.