Best Way to Improve Core Web Vitals on Elementor Site

  • Unknown's avatar
    tobeyswilliams · Member ·

    Hi everyone,

    I honestly don’t come from a technical background, so I’m hoping someone here can guide me in simple terms. I run a local plumbing and heating business website built with Elementor, and recently our client checked the website speed and became really unhappy because the mobile score is only showing around 78 in PageSpeed Insights.

    Normally my web team handles all this stuff, but unfortunately they’ve been unavailable for personal reasons for the last couple of weeks, and now I’m the one trying to deal with everything. The client keeps asking why the website is “slow,” and I’m honestly panicking a bit because I don’t fully understand what these numbers mean or how serious they are.

    I uploaded the screenshot of the report as well. The biggest thing I noticed was:

    • Speed Index: 12.9s
    • Largest Contentful Paint: 3.5s

    The strange thing is that the website feels okay when I open it myself, but the report still says performance needs improvement.

    The site is made with Elementor and has service pages, images, contact forms, and some animations. I’m not sure if Elementor itself is the issue or if something else is causing it.

    If anyone can explain in beginner-friendly language:

    • What should I focus on first?
    • Is 78 actually very bad?
    • What usually slows Elementor sites down the most?
    • Are there any simple fixes I can try before my team returns?

    Would really appreciate any honest advice because the client pressure right now is getting intense.

    Website I need help with is : https://cassidyplumbinginc.com/

    Attaching Screenshots as well

  • Unknown's avatar
    kian0engel · Member ·

    Hi, first thing, take a breath! 78 is not a disaster. The PageSpeed Insights scale is roughly: 90+ is “Good”, 50–89 is “Needs Improvement”, and below 50 is “Poor”. A 78 puts you in the middle of “Needs Improvement”, which is honestly where a lot of perfectly functional real-world sites sit. That’s also why your site feels okay when you open it, your actual users will rarely notice the difference between a 78 and a 92 in normal use.

    That said, your numbers do show some room to improve. Speed Index 12.9s is on the high side (that’s how long until the page visually fills in), and LCP 3.5s sits in “Needs Improvement” territory (under 2.5s is “Good”).

    What usually slows Elementor sites down, in rough order of impact:

    1. Unoptimized images. Photos straight from a phone or stock site are often 2–5MB each. They should usually be under 200KB.
    2. Lots of widgets and animations on one page. Elementor adds CSS and JavaScript per widget, and animations need extra rendering work.
    3. No caching. Without a cache, your server rebuilds every page from scratch for every visitor.
    4. Loading lots of Google Fonts. Every font weight is a separate download.

    Things you can try yourself before your team is back:

    Image optimization (biggest impact, easiest): Install ShortPixel, Smush, or EWWW Image Optimizer. Run it across your existing media library; it compresses everything in the background. For new images, check the file size before uploading; if it’s over 500KB, resize/compress it first with tinypng.com.

    Caching: Check whether your hosting already provides caching (many do these days). If not, LiteSpeed Cache or W3 Total Cache are both free and solid.

    Elementor’s own performance settings: In your dashboard, go to Elementor → Settings → Features and turn on “Improved Asset Loading”, “Improved CSS Loading”, and “Optimized DOM Output” if they’re not already on.

    One thing not to do: don’t start uninstalling things in a panic. If something breaks, it’ll be harder to figure out which change caused it. Try one fix at a time and re-run PageSpeed Insights between each so you can see what actually moved the number.

    One last thought for the client conversation: PageSpeed Insights measures performance under specific simulated conditions, and the report itself notes that real-user data is what matters most. Scroll down in the report and there’s usually a section called “Discover what your real users are experiencing” with field data. If that section shows your site as “Passed” or close to it, that’s the number that actually matters for SEO and user experience, and it’s the one to share with the client.

    Hope this helps until your team is back.

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