In early 2025, a Brisbane-based electrical services firm approached us with a frustrating problem. Their website looked stunning—high-resolution hero images, interactive service maps, and smooth animations. Yet, despite their aesthetic appeal, their organic traffic had plateaued, and their mobile rankings were sliding into the abyss of page two.
The culprit wasn't their content or their backlinks. It was their Core Web Vitals (CWV).
Google doesn’t care how much you paid your graphic designer; it cares about how quickly a tradesman on a 4G connection in Chermside can book a service. This case study breaks down how we overhauled their performance metrics to win back their rankings.
The Three Red Flags Holding Them Back
When we ran a data-led competitor audit, we found their rivals had simpler sites that loaded twice as fast. Our client was failing in three specific areas:
1. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Their 4MB hero image took 5.2 seconds to load on mobile. 2. Interaction to Next Paint (INP): Heavy JavaScript meant that when a user clicked 'Book Now', there was a noticeable 300ms lag before the site responded. 3. Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): As the site loaded, the navigation menu would 'jump' down, causing users to accidentally click the wrong button.
Action 1: Solving the 'Jumping' UI (CLS)
Cumulative Layout Shift is the silent killer of conversions. For this client, their ad banners and images didn't have defined dimensions in the code. As the browser discovered the image size, it would push the rest of the text down.
The Fix: We implemented explicit width and height attributes for every media element. We also reserved space for their dynamic review widget so it didn't 'pop in' and move the call-to-action button.
Result: CLS dropped from a 'Poor' 0.25 to a 'Good' 0.02. No more accidental clicks, and Google immediately stopped flagging the site for poor user experience.
Action 2: Prioritising the Mobile Experience
Many Australian business owners review their site on a high-speed NBN connection in their office using a MacBook Pro. This is a mistake. Your customers are often on the go, using older iPhones with patchy reception. This is exactly when desktop-first thinking kills rankings.
To fix the LCP (loading speed), we didn't just compress images; we changed the way they were served.
WebP Conversion: We converted all JPEGs to WebP format, reducing file sizes by 70%. Critical CSS: We identified the minimum CSS needed to render the top of the page and 'inlined' it, allowing the browser to show the header and headline instantly while the rest of the styles loaded in the background. Lazy Loading: We ensured that images at the bottom of the page (like staff photos) didn't start downloading until the user scrolled toward them.
Action 3: Trimming the JavaScript Fat (INP)
Interaction to Next Paint (INP) replaced First Input Delay as a core metric in 2024, and it’s a much tougher test. Our client had four different tracking scripts and a chat bot all fighting for attention the moment the page loaded.
We moved non-essential scripts—like the Facebook Pixel and heat-mapping tools—to a 'delayed' load. They now only trigger after the main content is interactive. This cleared the 'main thread' of the browser, making the site feel snappy and responsive. If your site feels sluggish, it's often because your website’s engine is stalling under the weight of unnecessary plugins.
The Business Impact: Beyond the Scores
Six weeks after these technical optimisations, the results were clear:
Organic Traffic: Increased by 28% as Google rewarded the improved mobile experience. Bounce Rate: Decreased by 15% because users weren't waiting for images to load. Conversion Rate: The 'Book Now' button saw a 12% uptick in clicks simply because it stayed in one place and responded instantly.
Immediate Steps for Your Business
You don't need to be a developer to start this process. Use Google’s free PageSpeed Insights tool today. If your mobile scores are in the red (0-49), you are actively losing money to faster competitors in the Brisbane market.
Start by asking your developer three questions: 1. Are we serving images in modern formats like WebP? 2. Do our images have defined width and height attributes? 3. Can we delay non-critical JavaScript until after the page loads?
Get a Professional Technical Audit
Core Web Vitals are no longer a 'nice to have'—they are a fundamental ranking factor in the Australian search landscape. If your site is lagging, your revenue is too.Ready to speed up your growth? Contact Local Marketing Group for a comprehensive technical performance review.