So, it’s mid-June 2021! Yes, it’s mid-June when Google is planning to update its algorithm and incorporate the Page Experience update. Google will roll out the update in mid-June, while the update will start playing a full role in terms of website rankings by August. Firstly, what is the degree of impact this update will bring alongside it? This is a core update. Thus, no matter what business you are in, or what part of the world you are in, the page experience update will affect your website rankings.
Now, what the Google Page Experience update is? Let’s see how Google explains this update:
According to Google, “The page experience signal measures aspects of how users perceive the experience of interacting with a web page. Optimizing for these factors makes the web more delightful for users across all web browsers and surfaces, and helps sites evolve towards user expectations on mobile. We believe this will contribute to business success on the web as users grow more engaged and can transact with less friction.” Read more
In simple words, after this update, the usability of your website will be one of the most important parameters in terms of your website rankings. Now, you can’t expect a website with poor usability to gain the top rankings or being Google’s choice anymore.
Analyzing Google Page Experience
The users will be able to see a new Google Page Experience report on the Google Search Console. This update will blend with the Core Web Vitals. The Google Plage Experience comprises several subsets. Let’s go through them and analyze the same below:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): It will evaluate the site’s loading performance. Google recommends the LCP of 2.5 seconds from the website starts to load to ensure a good LCP.
- First Input Delay (FID): FID measures the timeframe from which the user interacts with your website to the time browser takes to begin the processing event. Google recommends FID of less than 100 milliseconds (ms).
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): The sum of all the unexpected layout shits during the entire lifespan of a page is termed as CLS. In simple words, CLS measures the visual stability of a page. To ensure a good user experience in terms of CLS, the website owners should strive for CLS of less than 0.1.
- Mobile-Friendliness: The good user experience demands a mobile-friendly website. Site owners must consider taking a mobile-friendly test at timely intervals and thus their page experience is up to the mark.
- Safe-Browsing: Your site must not and shouldn’t comprise any sort of malicious content. Your website must be safe for every visiting user.
- HTTPS: The connection to your site should be secure. Thus, SSL Certification is a must for you to make Google and the users trust your website.
- No Intrusive Interstitials: The content on your page must be easily accessible to the users visiting your website. Avoiding the things like a pop-up covering the entire screen and thus making the content inaccessible to the users, using a standalone interstitial, and avoiding the layout making content inaccessible to the users is a way to ensure easy access to content for the users.
Page Experience Report in Search Console
Google is introducing a page experience report to provide the users with some deep insights. The primary idea of Google behind the launch of this report is combining the core web vitals and other important website details such as website security, mobile friendliness, website loading speed, etc.
This new page experience report will allow the user to extract the pages with a good page experience and thus analyze where do these pages lead. Thus, the users can rectify the bad pages on their website and improve the user experience by overcoming the loopholes.
Support for Signed Exchanges for all content
Google has also announced the signed exchanges on Google Search for all content for all web pages. This update enables the Google search to the privacy-preserving prefetching technique in all compatible browsers which improves the page experience. Thus, Google Search is able to load key resources of a page i.e., HTML, JavaScript, CSS which increases the browser’s speed in terms of displaying pages.
Nikkei, a publication based in Japan, tested SXG and it really got some positive results. It saw a 300 ms reduction in Largest Contentful Paint (LCP). Additionally, the results also saw 12% more user engagement along with a 9% rise in page views per session on Android Chrome. Thus, it can be said that SXG is a proven success in terms of improving the overall page experience of the users.
Importance of Google Page Experience Update
Google Page Experience will benefit the business which is yet not a brand but provides an amazing user experience. In simple words, Google cares for your business! They want your website to rank if your site really delivers the value.
Gone are the days when only brands used to show up. Now, if your website comprises strong content, and checks all the page experience factors enlisted above, your website is on track to success. Thus, though the brands will still get an edge, your website won’t be far behind too. User Experience will be playing a defining role in terms of ranking your website at a specific level, which means, your control in your hand.
How to Improve User Experience?
How will you keep up with this Google update? How will you ensure every visitor on your website gets the value that Google is expecting from your website? We enlist some of the ways you can implement to ensure maximum user experience on your website. Enjoy your read.
1. Make Website Mobile-Friendly: The list of page experience parameters Google mentions clearly comprises the mobile-friendliness of a website. Thus, check the mobile friendliness of your website at regular intervals.
The more mobile-friendly and responsive your website is, the better is the user experience on your website. Today, most website owners design a mobile-friendly website. And, if you don’t, then you are providing them with an edge along with a base to win.
2. Make Your Website Load Faster: Slow websites, now no more! This is a simple concept Google will go through in its latest updates. No matter, your website comprises superior content quality, or your website provides everything a user needs, but the slow loading of the website can be a game-changer for you.
As mentioned above, Google recommends LCP of less than 2.5 seconds. A fast website gives Google a factor to trust the same and also eliminates the most common cause of users turning off from the website within no time. Optimize the website in an efficient way to let your website load with the speed of light. You can read our article on how to make your website load faster.
3. Provide Valuable Content: The importance of valuable and on-point content can’t be stressed enough. Especially, after this update Google purely wants quality. It wants to give the users value for every visit they make on a website. Gone are the days when ranking with low-quality content was a piece of cake.
Every word you use in your content must be justified and supported with logical facts. Don’t confuse readers by using intrusive interstitials. With this Google Page Experience update, Google will not wait even for a moment to degrade your website rankings if it feels your content isn’t providing any value to the users. So, if you are a person compromising the quality of content, now is the time to strategize things again. One way is to provide value to the users is by publishing an evergreen content. Evergreen Content is one of the best ways to get the long-lasting results.
4. Create Right Website Design: Right, users get attracted to a website that looks beautiful. But, at the same time, they bounce back within a few seconds if they can’t cope with the complexity the website brings with it.
Every concept you use while designing your website must be simple, and easy to access for the users. Remember, simple things can be beautiful too. You just need to be a bit more creative, think something out of the box, and design a website that provides users simplicity and attractiveness in abundance.
It all begins from the WordPress theme you decide to go with. Choose the right theme, design it in the right way, and present it to the users in an attractive way. The more complicated the users find your website; the more are the chances of your website rankings degrading. Choosing correct WordPress Theme requires a meticulous research from your side.
5. Make Your Website Secure to Access: If you are a website owner, you shouldn’t wait for Google’s update to design a secure website. Digital fraud is not a new thing at all. This crap has made it so difficult for the users to trust and visit a website that has a “Not Secure” label alongside it. With the Google Page Experience update, Google will be much stricter with the websites that are not SSL certified, and rightly so.
If a user is visiting your website, the security of their privacy is your responsibility. You need to get that ‘S’ in the HTTP tag by designing an SSL-certified website. You can reach out to your hosting provider to do so. Securing your website will earn a decent trust of the users and will drive more traffic to the same. And, even Google will get positive signals too.
Google Page Experience update will be a boon for the website owners providing value to the users and a cause of stress and a strategy-changer for the website owners with poor user experience. If you are looking for more insights on this update, or if you wish to design a website that satisfies this core update, Pat’s Marketing, One of the Best SEO Company in Toronto at 888-488-7287 (toll-free). Let’s collaborate and give your visitors an amazing user experience in terms of your online presence.