Vitals are a ranking factor. Treat them like uptime for pages.
Daily field and lab checks.
Google uses page experience, including Core Web Vitals, as a ranking factor. It will not rescue thin content. It can keep a good page from being kneecapped by a 5 second LCP. If search is how customers find you, vitals are part of SEO work, not a side hobby for engineering.
Field data is what counts for ranking
Search Console and CrUX report what real users saw. A lab run on an empty cache is a debug tool. Ranking uses the field. If your lab is green and Search Console is red, believe Search Console.
Which URLs to watch
Home, the money landing pages, category and product templates, checkout. Do not start with a blog post from 2019. Start with the URLs in the top of Search Console performance.
What to fix first for SEO
LCP on templates that rank. Then INP on pages with filters and add-to-cart. CLS on pages where ads or fonts shove the title. One template fix often lifts a thousand URLs.
FAQ
Will passing vitals jump me to position 1?
No. It removes a penalty-shaped drag. Content, links and intent still decide the rest.
How often should I re-check?
Daily is enough to see a deploy that hurt LCP. Hourly vanity checks do not change how CrUX aggregates 28 days.