Images
Lazy loading vs eager loading
Lazy-load everything below the fold and eager-load everything above it — particularly the LCP image. Lazy-loading the hero adds a full round trip to your worst metric, and it is one of the most common self-inflicted performance problems.
Side by side
| Compared on | Lazy | Eager |
|---|---|---|
| When it fetches | Near the viewport | Immediately |
| Bandwidth on long pages | Saves a lot | Wastes a lot |
| Effect on LCP | Harmful if applied to the LCP element | Correct for the LCP element |
| Best for | Below-the-fold images | Hero and above-the-fold images |
| Implementation | loading="lazy" | Default, plus fetchpriority="high" |
When Lazy loading is the right choice
- Any image below the fold at every breakpoint
- Long pages with many images — galleries, catalogues, archives
- Iframes and embeds the visitor may never scroll to
When eager loading is the right choice
- The LCP element, always
- Anything in the first viewport at any screen size
- The logo and any image that is part of the first impression
How it goes wrong
A plugin or theme applies loading="lazy" to every image site-wide. The browser now waits to discover the hero is needed before requesting it, which directly delays Largest Contentful Paint — the exact metric the optimisation was supposed to help.
The pair that gets it right
fetchpriority="high" on the LCP image, loading="lazy" on everything below the fold, and width and height on all of them. That combination is most of image performance on a content page.
How to check what your site is doing
Open the page and look at the hero image in developer tools. If it carries loading="lazy", that single attribute is delaying your Largest Contentful Paint — and on a WordPress site it was almost certainly applied by a plugin rather than by anyone deciding.
The verdict
Not an either/or. Eager plus high priority above the fold, lazy below it, dimensions on everything. Applying one setting site-wide is the mistake, whichever setting you choose.
If you want the full treatment
Core Web Vitals, and the order that actually reduces them covers this in about 3 minutes — free, ungated, written from client work.
Who wrote this comparison
Anas Bin Masud builds e-commerce sites and does technical SEO for businesses in the UK, Canada and Pakistan. Where a comparison involves something I sell, the page says so — and every comparison here has to name at least two situations where each side wins, because a comparison one option always wins is an advert with a table in it.