Passing Core Web Vitals: A Mobile Page Speed & Readability Overhaul
A large digital news & media publisher.
Challenges We Faced
The client’s mobile traffic was in a nosedive, and they were losing their top rankings:
Declining Mobile Rankings
Google Search Console showed a 40% drop in mobile impressions YOY as Google’s mobile-first indexing penalized them.
Failing Core Web Vitals (All 3)
The site failed all Core Web Vitals due to heavy unoptimized hero images, excessive non-critical JavaScript, and ads loading late that caused layout shifts.
Poor Mobile Readability
The site used a small font size and had intrusive, full-screen pop-up ads.
High Mobile Bounce Rate
Users were “bouncing” in frustration before the articles even finished loading.
Pass Your Core Web Vitals
“Is your slow mobile site killing your rankings? Our mobile SEO services will get you in the ‘Good’ score and boost your traffic.”
Our Approach – How We Solved These Challenges
Page Speed & Core Web Vitals
This was our 100% focus. Our seo mobile optimization team worked with their developers to:
Fix LCP: Implement lazy loading and compress all images.
Fix INP: Defer all non-essential JavaScript (like social share buttons).
Fix CLS: Reserve a fixed “ad space” for all ad units so they wouldn’t shift the content.
Mobile Content & Readability
We increased the base font size from 12px to 16px and removed all “interstitial” pop-up ads, per Google’s guidelines.
Technical SEO (Mobile-Specific)
We used Screaming Frog (Mobile User-Agent) to crawl the site as a mobile phone, finding and fixing hundreds of mobile-only redirect errors.
UX & Engagement Optimization (Mobile-First)
We simplified the mobile layout, reduced above-the-fold clutter, improved tap target spacing, and optimized navigation flow to ensure smoother interactions and higher user engagement on mobile devices.
Results
| Metric | Before | After | Growth |
|---|---|---|---|
Core Web Vitals (Mobile) | “Failing” (95% URLs) | “Good” (88% URLs) | Passed |
| Avg. Mobile Page Load Time (LCP) | 7.8s | 2.1s | -73% |
| Mobile Organic Traffic | 1.2M/mo (declining) | 1.9M/mo (growing) | +58% |
Free Core Web Vitals Analysis
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Advice for Marketers & Brand Owners
- Core Web Vitals are not optional. For publishers, they are a direct and powerful ranking factor.
- CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) is the silent killer. If your ads are shifting your content, you are actively being penalized by Google.
- Optimize your images. Large, uncompressed images are the #1 cause of a slow LCP and high bounce rates.
- Check your Google Search Console (Core Web Vitals) report. Google is telling you exactly which pages to fix. Listen to it.
Extra Factors That Made It Work
- The fix for CLS by reserving ad space had the single biggest impact on their CWV score.
- The client’s development team was fully on board and implemented our technical mobile search engine optimisation recommendations.
- Removing the intrusive pop-ups not only helped with SEO but also drastically improved user engagement metrics.
