Core Web Vitals power hour
One hour on a call, on your own site. Fixed price, notes in writing. I look at your field data before we talk.
Some of the teams I've worked with
Skip the weeks of trial and error
It's usually a late image, a font that swaps or a script on the main thread. Which one, and why, is different on every site. I've seen most of them before, so I know where to look first.
- Where to start
Red metrics and no idea where to start
Search Console lists a few hundred poor URLs while PageSpeed Insights gives you a 98. Check which tab you're on: that 98 is often desktop, and it's a lab score either way. Google ranks on the field data at the top of the report, and on mobile that's often red. I show you which group of pages pulls the report down and which template to fix first.
- Your plan
Twenty items, all marked important
Your agency sent a list. Reduce unused JavaScript, minify CSS, serve images in next-gen formats and seventeen more. I check it against your field data. Minifying CSS saves a few kilobytes and none of your visitors will notice. Often only two or three items matter right now.
- One element
The LCP element that's still late
"Can you help us fix the 7.3s LCP element on our homepage?" It's the hero image, compressed and preloaded, and it still shows up late. Usually the browser finds it too late: it's a CSS background, a slider script adds it, or the preload asks for a different size than the image on the page. We find the LCP in the Performance panel and walk back to whatever held up the request.
- Your fix
Why isn't our fix working?
The changes went live two weeks ago and Search Console still says failed. Search Console shows the last 28 days, so half of what it shows is still the old site. Sometimes the fix never reached your visitors at all: the CDN still serves the old HTML, or the fix went into the desktop template and mobile uses another one. RUM like CoreDash shows which one the day after a release. Without RUM, we check your CrUX trend and the HTML your CDN serves.
What a power hour with me looks like
A power hour is for one problem. A layout shift on one template almost always fits in an hour. INP on a React storefront with forty scripts doesn't. That's an audit. Search Console won't be green when we hang up, but you'll know why it's red and what to fix first.
-
Your question first
Send me the problem. Before the call I look at your p75 for LCP, INP and CLS on mobile, which page group Search Console flags, and whether it has been failing for a year or since the last release. A sudden drop points at a deploy, a slow slide at third-party scripts piling up.
-
One hour, on your site
We share a screen and record a trace in Chrome's Performance panel. We find the slow LCP or the slow tap and walk back to what caused it. Bring your developer if you have one. It saves you explaining it all again tomorrow. If an agency builds your site, bring them too. Advice from someone they've never met is easier to wave away.
-
The notes
Within a day you get what we found: the cause, the effect and the fix, in the order to build them. Written so your developer or agency can work from it without having been on the call.
-
What's next, if anything
Sometimes it's one line, like
loading="lazy"on the LCP image or a missingfetchpriority="high". Then you're done. If there's more going on, I'll tell you what I'd do next. Often that's just your own developer with the notes.
What does a Core Web Vitals power hour cost?
€350, fixed. That includes the notes afterwards. Need a second hour? Book another one. Order an audit within a month and I take the €350 off the audit price.
- Me, and 17 years of finding these problems
- Your p75 on mobile checked before the call
- One hour on a call, on your own site
- Your developer on the call, if you like
- Everything we found, in writing, in the order to build it
- The price counts toward an audit
One problem, one hour
The prep before the call is included.
€350 excl. VATnotes within a day
Book a power hour
Send me your URL and the problem.
-
Tell me what's going on
What's slow, and what you've already tried. If there's a deadline, like Black Friday or a launch, mention it.
-
We book a time
I reply within a day with a few times that work for me. You pick one.
-
I prepare and answer your questions
Before the call I go through your field data and record a trace of the pages you sent. By the time we talk, I know what's going on. Then it's one hour on a video call: you ask, I answer, and your developer is welcome to join. The notes follow within a day.
What a power hour looked like at gmbapi
A local SEO company with a new site
gmbapi is a local SEO company, and a good one. Their developers had just built a great new site and wanted me to go over it with them. They're open to a straight conversation about their own work. We booked an hour and ended up talking a bit longer.
From the top of the page to the bottom, I walked them through the page timings and pointed out a handful of issues: some layout shifts, a few slow interactions and a couple of things that held back the LCP. They fixed them. LCP went from 5 seconds to 1.9 and server response from 3 seconds to 700 milliseconds. The layout shifts are gone.
The power hour
What is a Core Web Vitals power hour?
A one hour video call about one problem on your site. You get the notes in writing afterwards.
Is this a sales call?
No. You're paying for the hour, so we spend it on your site. If I think you need an audit, I'll mention it at the end and leave it there.
I'm not technical. Is this for me?
Yes. I explain what's wrong in plain words, and the notes say what to ask your developer or agency.
Can you fix it during the call?
Sometimes, if your developer is on the call and the fix is small. Bigger things go in the notes, in the order to build them.
Someone promised us a 90+ score. Can you check that?
Yes. A 90 in Lighthouse and passing Core Web Vitals are two different things. Some plugins get the 90 by holding back your scripts for a few seconds. That fools the test and does nothing for real visitors. I'll show you which one you're being sold.
Before and after
What do you need from us?
Your URL and your question. If you have RUM, Search Console or analytics, share your screen during the call. You don't have to give me access to anything.
Is one hour enough?
For one problem, usually. If it isn't, we'll both know by the end of the hour. Then you book a second one, or we talk about an audit.
How is this different from an audit?
A power hour is one problem, on a call. An audit is the whole site, template by template, with a written report your developer builds from. Not sure which one you need? Start with the hour. Order an audit within a month and the €350 comes off the price.
Is the call recorded?
If you want it to be. Say so when you book.
