Core Web Vitals audit
For teams with one or two developers who need to know what to fix first. And for anyone who was handed a rebuild, a new theme or a plugin and wants a second opinion first. Fixed price, one week. I look at your site before we agree on the scope.
Some of the teams I've worked with
What an audit with me looks like
An audit answers three questions. What's slow, why, and what to fix first. I answer them from your field data and write the answers down so a developer who has never met me can build them.
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Your field data first
I start where Google looks: your real visitors at the 75th percentile, in CrUX. CrUX tells me you're slow. It doesn't tell me which image or which script. If you already have RUM I use that. If not, I add CoreDash while I audit, and its RUM data lets me see where each slow number comes from.
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Template by template
Then I go through the templates that make you money. Home, category, product, checkout. I trace each one in Chrome, request by request, until I know why the LCP image is late and what happens on the main thread when someone taps. An LCP image is rarely slow on its own. It's the timing, some network congestion and a few other small mistakes, and together they add up to an extra second. Fix one and you'll barely notice the difference. Fix them in the right order and you've actually solved the problem.
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A report your developer can build from
Each finding gets the cause, the effect and the fix, with code examples. In order of importance: what goes first, what can wait, and what only pays off once something else is done. A one page summary on top for you, the rest for your developer.
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A 2 hour call with your team
Your developer, your agency, or both. I walk them through my findings. Then they ask, I answer, and they leave knowing what to build on Monday.
What does a Core Web Vitals audit cost?
€1,500, fixed. We agree on the scope before I start, and you have the report within a week. If I find something big and simple on day one, you hear about it on day one.
- Me, not a junior consultant with a checklist
- Each problem with its cause, its effect and the fix
- Code examples your developer or agency can use
- What to fix, in order of importance
- A one page executive summary in plain language
- A 2 hour call with your team
- Questions by mail while they build, at no extra charge
One fixed price
4 page types, like home, category, product and checkout.
€1,500 fixed, excl. VATwithin a week
Request an audit
Send me your URL and a line about what's going on.
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Tell me about your site
Your URL and what's bothering you. Before I reply, I go through your field data and your main templates to get a first idea of what's wrong. Specific questions go in the form too, and the report answers them.
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We agree on the scope
Within a day you hear from me, sometimes with a few questions. Then we pick the 4 page types. Usually you tell me which ones matter most: you know your content, I know the tech.
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You say yes, I start
I don't need access to anything. If I'm unsure about something, I'll ask you to check it. That hardly ever happens. A week later you have the report, and we go through it with your team.
Who is a Core Web Vitals audit for?
- Small teams
One or two developers
For a team that size, months of consultancy is usually more than the problem needs. Any good developer can figure out Core Web Vitals with enough trial and error. I skip that part. I've been doing this since 2009, so I go straight to what's wrong and what to fix first.
- Agencies
An audit for a client's site
You build the site, and your client sees red in Search Console. I audit it, write the findings so your developers can build them, and go through them with your team. Your client gets a faster site from the agency they already work with. For ongoing work there's agency support.
- Second opinions
Before you spend more on it
Someone proposed a rebuild, a new theme or a plugin that promises to fix everything, and you're not sure. I hold the plan next to your field data and tell you whether it fixes what's slow for your visitors, or what I'd do instead.
What an audit looked like at Voices
A WordPress marketing site, a separate app for voice actor profiles, a blog and podcasts
Voices is where companies hire voice actors, and their site was really three sites: a WordPress marketing site, a separate app for the voice actor profiles, and a blog and podcasts. I went through about 25 URLs across all of them. On the homepage the layout jumped three times while it loaded: a fallback font swapped to Roboto, a hero image without dimensions pushed everything down, and then Roboto swapped to Poppins.
The blog looked fine on paper. It scored 94 in Lighthouse, because an optimization plugin held back the scripts for about four seconds. That fools the test and does nothing for real visitors, so my first advice for the blog was to take it out.
Then I sat down with their developers. I told them how to fix the most pressing problems first and taught them a few things along the way. It saved them from finding out what works the hard way. A while later their development manager mailed me the list: scripts moved to the footer, duplicate fonts removed, font-display fixed, fetchpriority on the images that matter. They took it and went flying.
That was 2022. The numbers above are their real mobile visitors over the last 28 days, four years later.
Questions I get asked
The audit
What is a Core Web Vitals audit?
I find out what's slow on your site for real visitors, why it's slow, and what to fix first. It's based on your field data, the same data Google uses, not on a lab test. You get the findings in writing, and we go through them with whoever builds your site.
Is a PageSpeed audit the same as a Core Web Vitals audit?
Not quite. Most PageSpeed audits start from a Lighthouse score: one simulated phone, one run. I start from what your real visitors experience at the 75th percentile, because that's what Google looks at. I still run lab tests, but only to find out why something is slow, not to decide whether it is.
Do you only look at LCP, INP and CLS?
No. A web performance audit that stops at three metrics misses the causes. TTFB, render-blocking CSS, fonts, third-party scripts and the order things load in are where most problems start. They're in the report too, in the order they matter.
Why not just run PageSpeed Insights ourselves?
You can, and you should. It tells you that you fail and roughly where. It doesn't tell you why the browser finds your LCP image late, which script is on the main thread when someone clicks, or which of its suggestions won't move your field data at all.
Your site
Our site runs on Shopify or WordPress. Can you audit it?
Yes. On a hosted platform you can't change the platform itself, but the theme, the apps and the scripts they add are yours, and most of the problems are in there. The same goes for a WordPress theme and its plugins.
Can you audit a site that isn't live yet?
Yes, on staging. Without real visitors there's no field data, so I lean on lab tests and on what I've seen break on similar sites. Once it's live, the field data tells us if I was right.
What do you need from us?
Your URL and the page types you care about. Access to Search Console and your analytics helps, and so does access to the code, but it isn't required. Most of what I need happens in the browser.
Scope and price
What does an audit cost?
€1,500 for up to 4 page types, like home, category, product and checkout. Several domains, a lot of languages or a separate web app next to your marketing site? Then the scope tells you the price before I start. No hourly meter.
How long does it take?
Within a week of getting access. Bigger sites take longer, and the scope says how long before I start.
Do we need a call first?
No. You request an audit and I mail you back with the scope. Would you rather talk first? Say so in the form and we'll do 20 minutes.
After the audit
Do you fix the problems yourself?
No. The audit tells you what to fix, and your developer or agency builds it. If you want me there while they build, that's consultancy.
Our site is built by an agency. Does that work?
Yes. I write the findings so a developer who has never met me can build them, and I'm happy to go through them with the agency directly. They get specifics, you get something to check them against.
What if questions come up while they build?
Mail me. A fix that turns out harder than it looked, or a result that doesn't match what I expected: that's part of the audit, not an extra.
How often should we get an audit?
Usually once, and again after a redesign, a new theme or a platform migration. With RUM and alerts you know when something gets slower, so you don't need a web performance audit every year.
