# How Image Compression Improves Core Web Vitals (LCP) and Page Speed
Google's Core Web Vitals directly impact search rankings. Among the three metrics (LCP, INP, CLS), **Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)** is overwhelmingly bottlenecked by oversized hero banners and unoptimized product photos.
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## The Impact of Image Payload on Performance
- **Bandwidth Consumption:** Serving 3MB uncompressed PNGs over 4G networks takes 2–4 seconds just to download, failing Google's 2.5s LCP benchmark.
- **Browser Decoding:** High-resolution images consume mobile RAM and CPU during rasterization.
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## Best Practices for Image Optimization
1. **Compress Before Deploying:** Use TargetRoot's [Image Compressor](/tools/image/compressor) to reduce JPEG and PNG files by 60%–80% using smart lossy/lossless algorithms.
2. **Convert to Next-Gen Formats:** Convert legacy JPG/PNG assets to WebP using our [Image to WebP Guide](/blog/convert-image-to-webp-free-unlimited).
3. **Responsive Sizing:** Always set explicit `width` and `height` attributes to avoid Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS).
Explore our full [Image Tools Suite](/tools/image) to keep your web apps fast and lightweight.
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