We’ve all been there: you’re on your phone, trying to find what you need on a business’s website. You not only can’t find what you need, but when you try to call the business, the phone number isn’t set up in the Google business profile or on the business website. You get frustrated and move on to a competitor that has what you need.
As we move into a world that will be primarily accessed on mobile, and with users being more savvy (and impatient) than ever, it is incredibly important to take a realistic view of your business’s website. Google has decided that this will be a huge factor in page rankings for their search engine, which is where more than 90% of people search.
What Is Google Page Experience?
Google Page Experience is a set of signals that measure how users perceive the experience of interacting with a web page beyond its pure informational value. It includes Core Web Vitals, which is a set of metrics that measure real-world user experience for loading performance, interactivity, and visual stability of the page. It also includes existing search signals: mobile-friendliness, HTTPS (security), and intrusive interstitial guidelines. Website pages that are more user-friendly are being pushed higher on Google’s search engine results page (SERP). This began in June 2021, with a full roll-out starting soon for this Google Page Experience update. If you’ve been on the fence about updating your website, the time is now.
Custom content will still be the best way to see search success aside from the Google Page Experience metrics. Google will also add labels in search results that indicate which results provide a “good” page experience and is working on visual indicators to identify pages that have met all of the page experience criteria listed above. As it stands, many websites do not qualify. A study published last August shows less than 15% of sites are optimized well enough to pass a Core Web Vitals assessment!
Although these factors will join the hundreds of signals that Google considers when generating search results, Google still seeks to rank pages with the best information overall. Great page experience doesn’t override having relevant page content. However, in cases where there are many pages that may be similar in relevance, page experience can be much more important for visibility in search results.
This algorithm update will consider several experiences:
Mobile usability
A URL must have no mobile usability errors in order to qualify for “Good” status. Google’s mobile-friendly test has multiple specific error notifications. Each one highlights a particular reason your site is not performing well on mobile. Some of these errors include incompatible plugins, “content too wide”(visitor can’t see all of the content without rotating the screen) and “text too small” (visitor can’t read the text without zooming in).
- Test yours here: https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly
Security issues
Any security issues for a site disqualify all URLs on the site from a getting a “Good” status.
HTTPS usage
A page must be served over HTTPS to be eligible for “Good” page experience status.
Ad Experience
A site must not use advertising techniques that are distracting, interrupting, or otherwise not conducive to a good user experience.
Wondering if your website passes the test? Check your website at https://search.google.com/search-console/welcome, then contact our experts so we can help you with making these changes. We have created over 700 websites over the past few years in our markets across the country, in a variety of industries. We’re happy to share examples, and make recommendations, at no additional cost to you.
Complete the form below or give us a call today and one of our local marketing experts will reach out with ideas for growing your business. We offer customized solutions and many audience acquisition channels in our constantly growing portfolio of marketing services. At River Valley Media Group, our team brings knowledge gained by living and working in the communities we serve and pairs that with the expertise and the unmatched power of our local, regional and national resources. Contact us today!
Here are more Search-Friendly Page Experience Tools: