Google recently announced, that in 2021, it will introduce the page experience signals into its efforts to provide the best search rankings. Is your business website prepared?
We believe this update is a good thing as it keeps the browser’s experience at the center of search rankings and works hand-in-hand with its efforts to highlight the most relevant website content. This seems good for the user, and the internet, as it pushes websites that have the best user experiences to the top of search rankings.
This new update takes their existing measurements (mobile-friendly, security, etc.) and combines it with their Core Web vital experiences (loading, interactivity, visual stability). The Core Web Vitals focus primarily on how fast a website loads and how fast a user can interact with your site. So all together Google Page Experience model will look like this now.
What does your website need in order to satisfy Google’s Page Experience requirements?
***New in 2021 – Fast Page Loading Speed: Google has made it clear that you should aim for having your site load meaningful content in less than 2.5 seconds. Of course, Google uses different language and says things like Largest Contentful Paint, First Input Delay and Cumulative Layout Shift. The bottom line is that they’re measuring how long a person has to wait to see your website and how long it takes your site to be ready for the user to engage with it.
Mobile-Friendly Browsing Experience – This is old news, but mobile-friendly sites continue to be the standard. If your business website site isn’t device-agnostic you’re living in 2010. Secondarily most local businesses need to be prepared that Google will read their site’s mobile version first (and apply corresponding rankings) before looking at the desktop version.
HTTPS (Secure Site) – Look in your internet browser and make sure a nice friendly lock icon is showing up next to websites URL. This indicates a SSL certificate has been applied correctly to your website and your sites connection is secure using an HTTPS connection. If your website site isn’t served over HTTPS Google will ding you.
Safe Browsing – You need to confirm that your site doesn’t have any malware or malicious content…i.e., make sure you haven’t been hacked. Regular security scans and software updates should accomplish this.
No Intrusive Interstitials: No one like giant pop ups that cover content you want to read. The user should not have to close 4 different blocks to get to the content they’d like to browse. Tell your marketing team to be smart with your ads and coupons and not to tick off Google.
Google seems to be on a mission to make the internet better by providing the framework for effective websites. We think this is a good thing. At the end of the day, the most relevant websites that provide the best experience show up the highest in search results.
So if you’re looking to stay current with search engine trends in 2021 we suggest focusing on two things, providing a great user experience and creating new, relevant information on your site that users are looking for.