Performance & UX (Core Web Vitals)

1. INP above 200 ms at p75. FID is gone; INP is the responsiveness metric. If taps feel sticky, you’ll bleed users.
2. LCP over 2.5 s on mobile. Hero images unoptimized, render blocking scripts, easy wins.
3. CLS above 0.1. Shifting layouts break trust and cause misclicks.

Fix fast: compress images, lazy load below the fold components, ship fewer render blocking scripts, preconnect critical origins, defer third party tags.

Accessibility & compliance

4. No WCAG 2.2 audit. New success criteria (focus appearance, target size, dragging alternatives, etc.) catch real usability bugs.
5. Missing visible focus states / small tap targets. Users on mobile and keyboard users struggle.
6. Poor color contrast or alt text gaps. You can’t convert people who can’t read your UI.

Why it matters: The U.S. DOJ finalized accessibility rules for Title II (government sites/apps). While private sector rules are still evolving, litigation risk and UX gains make alignment a no brainer.

Search & content hygiene

7. No structured data. If Google can’t read your entities (Organization, Product, FAQ, HowTo), you miss rich results and AI summaries may garble your details.
8. Thin or unmaintained evergreen pages. Outdated pricing, dead tools, or stale stats erode credibility fast.
9. No author bylines or E‑E‑A‑T signals. Real humans, roles, and references help.

Privacy & measurement

10. All in on third party cookies. Chrome’s Privacy Sandbox timelines keep shifting under regulatory review; either way, don’t depend on fragile trackers.
11. No server side/tag governance. Broken tags and duplicate events wreck attribution and site speed.

Trust & conversion

12. Inconsistent contact & policy pages. Hours, addresses, and policies must match across site, search profiles, and social.
13. Broken forms or vague errors. Users won’t debug your site; they’ll bounce.
14. No performance SLOs in your vendor SOWs. If partners aren’t accountable for LCP/INP/CLS and accessibility, neither is your site.

Mini action plan (30 – 60 days)

• Audit: Lighthouse + field data; accessibility quick wins; analytics/tag audit.
• Ship: Image pipeline, critical CSS, code‑split + defer non‑critical JS; add Organization & FAQPage schema; fix contact & policy pages.
• Prove it: Set p75 SLOs: LCP ≤ 2.5s, INP < 200ms, CLS < 0.1. Track uplift in conversion and support tickets.

Sources

• web.dev — INP became a Core Web Vital (and thresholds): https://web.dev/blog/inp-cwv-march-12 and https://web.dev/articles/optimize-inp and https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/core-web-vitals
• W3C — WCAG 2.2 Recommendation (what’s new): https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/new-in-22/ and https://www.w3.org/WAI/news/2023-10-05/wcag22rec/
• U.S. DOJ — Final rule on web/app accessibility for state & local government (Title II): https://www.ada.gov/resources/2024-03-08-web-rule/ and Federal Register: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/04/24/2024-07758
• Google — Structured data general guidelines & success in AI search: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/sd-policies and https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2025/05/succeeding-in-ai-search