Google is always coming up with new ideas and updates.

This time it’s about the new Page Experience algorithm update that was launched in mid-June and started playing its full role at the end of August. Are you prepared?

First of all, what is the page experience update?

Based on the article Google posted on Thursday 28 May 2020

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.

Let’s simplify it:

Normally, we have been used to SEO factors such as Backlinks, keywords, content etc but now an additional factor was added to the list which is the user experience (UX)

In other words, this means that the main focus now will shift to creating a better experience for the user. The user experience (UX) is the user’s interaction with the website. Therefore, the more the website is user-friendly the most likely it will rank highly in the search engines.

Why Google has done this update?

Let’s start with you, don’t you prefer a website that gives you what you need directly and provides you an intuitive experience?

The answer is, yes. Everyone prefers user-friendly websites and a bad user experience will make users avoid your website at any cost. Nobody wants to dig deep to find what they want while they are plenty of websites that will provide the information easily. Therefore for Google, it wouldn’t be fair to rank you on top if you are going to waste your user’s time.

How the user experience is measured?

Web Vitals is an initiative created by Google that allows you to dive into the secret ranking algorithm of quality to provide the best user experience.

The high level metrics for user experiences are three: loading, interactivity and visual stability and the low level metrics that are used for the quality experiences are called ‘’ The Core Web Vitals’’ and they are important to all web experiences. Each one of them represents a side of the user experience.

• Largest Contenful Paint (LCP): is the metric that measures the times a website loads. For a good user experience, LCP should not exceed 2.5 seconds.

• First Input Delay (FID): is the metric that measures interactivity which means the time from when a user first interacts with your website to the time the browser responds. For a good user experience, FID should be 100 milliseconds or less.

• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): is the metric that measures the visual stability which means how much visible content shifted in the viewport as well as the distance the elements impacted were shifted. For a good user experience, pages should maintain a CLS of 0.1. or less.

How can you optimize your user experience so you can rank highly on the search engine?

First of all, you should know that Google is going to focus on their algorithm from a page-level basis which means they are going to focus on ‘’ page experience’’ rather than‘’ website experience’’ which is much easier and cost-effective because you can optimize pages that have most valuable information more than the others. In other words, you can still rank on top even if you have few pages optimized but make sure they are the important ones for the user.

And now we will give you few tips to optimize your page experience the best way possible:

• Keep it simple: Users tend to prefer the simple website. You don’t need to add unnecessary components. Try to have a clean layout and colors that go in harmony. The design should be responsive and each page should have a specific purpose and help the user achieve its final goal.
• Make sure your website load fast: This is one of the most important components of user experience. Slow page loading is frustrating and will harm your website no matter how good the content is. Users prefer a website that allows them to move freely and focus on their goals instead of wasting their time waiting.
• Make your website mobile-friendly:  Nowadays mobile devices are used more than computers. Users can check your website while in a traffic jam or at a hair salon. Therefore, you should provide them the best mobile experience.
• Make sure it’s error-free: Nobody wants to navigate to a website full of errors. Imagine yourself paying with a credit card on a website, and then ‘’Error’’ appears. Frustrating, isn’t it? User hate errors., that’s why we recommend testing your website before launching it.

In conclusion, this update is logical and a next step ahead. The more a user loves your website, the more you deserve to rank at the top of the Google search engine. Focusing your attention on user experience will fulfill your user’s needs and will make them likely to stay loyal to your products or service.

Active WebDezign Ltd