First Contentful Paint (FCP) measures the time from when a page begins loading to when any part of its content — text, image, or non-white canvas element — is first rendered on screen, serving as an early diagnostic performance metric.
While FCP isn’t one of the three official Core Web Vitals, it’s a useful complementary metric for understanding how quickly a page begins to feel like it’s loading, ahead of the more comprehensive Largest Contentful Paint measurement.
Improving FCP typically involves reducing server response time and eliminating render-blocking resources early in the loading process, overlapping significantly with broader Core Web Vitals optimization work.
FCP is monitored alongside Core Web Vitals within our Technical SEO service.