Layout shift: what it is and how to fix it
What it is
The page jumps around while it loads.
Why it matters to a client
When content shifts under a thumb, people tap the wrong thing. On a booking form that is a lost enquiry.
How to find it
Check the page in PageSpeed Insights on mobile, or open the Performance tab of the site in AuditOpti — we pull the same Google data for the homepage and the top crawled pages.
How to fix it
Give images and ad slots explicit width and height, and reserve space for anything injected after load, such as a cookie banner.
- 1In the SEO plugin (Yoast, Rank Math or SEOPress), open the page's SEO panel and correct the setting described above.
- 2If the problem repeats across a post type, change it once in the plugin's template settings rather than page by page.
- 3Clear any caching plugin afterwards, then re-check the live page in a private window.
How AuditOpti prioritizes it
AuditOpti scores this as medium severity by default, then multiplies it by how many pages are affected — one page is not the same problem as a hundred. After that, the AI re-ranks it against everything else on the site by likely business impact, so a medium-severity problem on a service page can outrank a critical one on a page nobody visits.
Check a site for this
Run a free audit and we'll tell you whether this issue is present — along with everything else worth fixing.