/audit-speed

Audit Speed

Deep Core Web Vitals audit with root-cause analysis trees and resource optimization recommendations.

Core Web Vitals Thresholds

Before You Start

Gather this context:

1. Which pages? Homepage, key landing pages, or specific slow pages.
2. Current scores. If the user has Lighthouse or PageSpeed Insights data, start there.
3. Tech stack. CMS, framework, hosting — this determines which optimizations are available.
4. Known constraints. Third-party scripts they can't remove, design requirements that limit optimization.

If no data is available, suggest running Google PageSpeed Insights on the key URLs.

LCP Root-Cause Tree

LCP measures when the largest visible element finishes rendering. Diagnose:

Is TTFB slow (> 800ms)?

• → Server response time issue
• Check: hosting quality, CDN configuration, database queries, server-side rendering time
• Fix: upgrade hosting, add CDN, optimize server-side code, enable caching

Is the LCP element an image?

• → Image optimization issue
• Check: image format (use WebP/AVIF), image size (serve responsive sizes), lazy loading on LCP image (should NOT be lazy loaded)
• Fix: convert to modern formats, add width/height attributes, use fetchpriority="high" on LCP image, preload the LCP image

Is the LCP element text?

• → Font loading issue
• Check: custom fonts blocking render, font file size, font-display strategy
• Fix: use font-display: swap or optional, preload critical fonts, subset fonts to used characters

Is render-blocking CSS/JS delaying the LCP?

• Check: large CSS files in <head>, synchronous JS before content
• Fix: inline critical CSS, defer non-critical CSS, async/defer JS

CLS Root-Cause Tree

CLS measures unexpected layout shifts. Diagnose:

Do images/videos lack dimensions?

• → Browser can't reserve space before loading
• Fix: add width and height attributes to all <img> and <video> elements, use CSS aspect-ratio

Do ads or embeds inject content?

• → Dynamic content pushing existing content down
• Fix: reserve space for ad slots with min-height, use contain-intrinsic-size for lazy content

Do fonts cause text reflow?

• → FOUT (Flash of Unstyled Text) causes layout shift when custom font loads
• Fix: use font-display: optional (no swap = no shift), or match fallback font metrics

Does dynamic content insert above the fold?

• → Banners, cookie notices, notifications pushing content
• Fix: use overlays instead of inline insertions, or reserve space with fixed-height containers

INP Root-Cause Tree

INP measures responsiveness to user interactions. Diagnose:

Is the main thread blocked by long tasks?

• Check: JavaScript execution time, third-party scripts, large DOM
• Fix: break long tasks with requestIdleCallback or setTimeout, code-split heavy modules

Do event handlers do heavy synchronous work?

• Check: click handlers that trigger large DOM updates, form validation on every keystroke
• Fix: debounce inputs, use requestAnimationFrame for visual updates, offload work to web workers

Are third-party scripts competing for the main thread?

• Check: analytics, chat widgets, A/B testing tools, social embeds
• Fix: defer loading until after interaction, use loading="lazy" for embeds, consider removing low-value scripts

Resource Analysis

Break down the total page weight:

Benchmarks:

• Total page weight under 1.5 MB is good
• JavaScript under 300 KB (compressed) for most sites
• CSS under 100 KB (compressed)
• First-party fonts under 100 KB

Output Format

Speed Audit: [URL or domain]

Core Web Vitals

Resource Breakdown [Table from Resource Analysis]

Priority Fixes

For each failing metric, ordered by impact:

1. [Metric]: [Root cause]

   • Current: [value]
   • Target: [threshold]
   • Fix: [specific action]
   • Estimated impact: [high/medium/low]

2. ...

Quick Wins List optimizations that require minimal effort:

• Add width/height to images
• Set fetchpriority="high" on LCP image
• Defer non-critical JavaScript
• ...

Pro Tip: Use the free CWV Impact Calculator to estimate the traffic impact of fixing Core Web Vitals, and the Critical CSS Generator to extract above-the-fold CSS. SEOJuice MCP users can run /seojuice:page-audit [domain] [url] for instant CWV scores, Lighthouse data, and resource breakdowns.