A Complete Guide to Know About Google Page Experience Update

Table of Contents

Part 1: Introduction to Google Page Experience Update

User Experience is set to directly impact the page ranks of websites. According to the recent news about Google algorithm update 2021, the new search ranking algorithm will consider user experience, starting as a direct ranking factor from May 2021. Based on the news, the company will provide a minimum of six months’ notice before it puts the page experience update into effect.

The overall objective of this page experience update is to enhance the web browsing experience of users on computers as well as on mobile phones. The page experience update is expected to take the UX efforts of the company one step further.

After the update, pages that are ranked higher on the scale of user-friendliness and relevancy will be pushed to the top positions on the SERP page of search engines.

According to the Google page update news, they will create a “page experience” ranking signal by combining the latest signals for page experience along with Core Web Vitals. A good page experience will significantly help in enhancing the rankings. On the other hand, negative scoring could lead to a drop in the page rankings.

After this update, the algorithm will calculate page experience by using Core Web Vitals. It will also consider some other user experience elements. These metrics will determine your overall page experience score. Pages with positive page experience will have a better ranking, while a negative score will lead to adverse results.

Part 2: What Is Page Experience?

Page experience plays an important role in determining the bounce rate of a webpage. Users like to stay on those websites that offer a good page experience. Such web pages are seen to have low bounce rates. Page Experience is used to indirectly impact the rankings of a website. After the new Google 2021 algorithm, it is going to directly impact the ranking of a website.

Core Web Vitals are performance measurement metrics that are designed to compute the user-friendliness of a webpage. The recent updates from Google are as follows:

Largest Contentful Paint: It is a measure of how fast the content gets loaded on the website. In an ideal scenario, it has to be 2.5 seconds or below for any given page.

Cumulative Layout Shift: It is related to the stability of the layout of a webpage. It will compute whether or not the text or objects present on the page will shift quickly when a viewer interacts with them.

The other UX Signals that forms part of the overall Page Experience Update are:

Mobile-Friendliness
Safe-Browsing
Presence of secure HTTPS protocol
No Intrusive Interstitials

In the Page Experience update, Google has stated that it will update these elements yearly. The objective is to goal is to increase the aspects of page experience that will impact page ranking, and could change user expectations.

Post the Google algorithm update 2021 update, page experience will impact the way how Google will determine what articles are displayed in the news aggregator box. AMP ensures that the web pages are fast, safe, and mobile-friendly.

All these attributes contribute to the overall page experience ranking signals. It is important to note that the update would not impact the linking for existing AMP pages, so users who already use AMP, would not need to reconfigure their articles.

Part 3: What Experts Advice For “Google’s New Algorithm: Page Experience

Google has recently rolled out the Page Experience algorithm update that will come into effect from May 2021.

Let us look at what are the views of experts about this algorithm.

Neil Patel is a NY Times bestselling author. President Obama has recognized him among the top 100 entrepreneurs below the age of 30. According to him, Google algorithm update 2021 is the logic-based, stepwise procedure to solving any problem. The algorithm states how Google identifies, ranks, and returns the appropriate outcome. It will help deliver the best results for every search.

To improve the quality of returns, Google started updating its search algorithm. This Google page update algorithm will modify the way how relevant results will be delivered to search users. As a result of algorithmic changes, some websites may get penalized with low rankings, while some sites will experience a rise in rankings and organic traffic.

The more appropriate results that people obtain when they search for a particular keyword, the more precise the data that search engines can obtain and return for other different searchers. That’s the reason why these modifications will impact mobile search results.

The recent changes by Google in Page Experience update, coupled with a surge in expansion in the use of mobile devices will have a significant impact on search marketers. The algorithm will help websites remodel themselves to deliver the best-in-class user experience. The best long-term search strategy for those who look for traffic is to align themselves with the objectives mentioned by Google.

Brian Dean has in-depth knowledge and years of experience in SEO. His SEO guides receive thousands of comments and shares regularly, as they provide actionable and relevant advice to his readers.

According to Brian Dean, Google rewards a website that provides in-depth content to viewers. It punishes the ones that provide inferior or questionable content.

Some of the characteristics of such content include:

Short-form, and keyword-stuffed pieces made for the ranking purpose
Content that has questionable backlink profiles, private blog networks, or paid links
Sites that have thin content, cheap tricks, and shortcuts

Brian Dean believes that website owners should not fear Google, but create content that readers really want to read. Long and fresh content will help enhance page rankings on SERP.

Part 4: Do you need to worry about Google’s Page Experience Update

The traffic on your website could get affected after the implementation of the Google Page Experience update. By learning about the update, you can adjust your website to avoid loss of traffic.

The page experience is a factor that measures how users experience at the time of interacting with any web page. Optimization of these factors will make the webpage a lot more delightful for website users across all devices and web browsers.

This is a direct ranking signal that will help websites to evolve in the direction of user expectations on mobile. It is going to contribute to the success of businesses on the web with users becoming more engaged and finding it easier to transact.

The purpose of the Google Page Experience update is to ensure that websites that list on the top of SERP aren’t creating poor user experiences. In other words, after the implementation of the update, only those websites that are user-friendly will rank higher on the search engine results page.

This change will impact SEO in a big way. The update will ensure that only those websites having a favorite brand of users, will rank on the Google SERP. With this Google page update, they are adapting the algorithm to make it closely aligned with its objective of showing the websites first that the users favor the most.

The future algorithm change of Google will emphasize “website experience” or “page experience” of the website from a page-level basis. Not all pages of the website need to provide a good user experience.

If you have many web pages that provide a good user experience, and only a few of them provide a poor user experience, then the overall rankings of the website would not get impacted by this update.

Here is how to optimize the user experience of the website:

Optimize the webpage loading speed and reduce “400” errors
Compare the user experience to that of your competitions
Analyze the design of your website
Install the “Ubersuggest Chrome extension”

Part 5: How To Prepare for The Page Experience Update

After the Google 2021 algorithm, the user experience will become a lot more important than ever. If you and everyone love a website, then Google will ultimately want to ensure that the website ranks high on SERP.

On the contrary, if everybody feels that a website provides a terrible user experience, then Google would not rank that site in high positions in the future.

What factors are beneficial for ranking page experience on a website?

Optimize the speed of a webpage
Compare your user experience with your competition
Analyze your webpage design
Mobile Responsiveness of a webpage
Safe browsing (HTTPS) of a webpage
Presence of Useless ads and Notifications on the webpage

As per the Google Page Experience update, if you wish to maximize the chances of ranking a website at the top of search results, then it is important to optimize the WordPress website for the latest update.

After this roll-out, there would be many websites that will go up and go down on the SERP results. To rank high on the SERP, a website should optimize itself on the above five signals.

Core Web Vitals

The three Core Web Vitals performance metrics are Largest Contentful Paint, Cumulative Layout Shift, and First Input Delay. They focus on the way performance connects to user experience. By measuring the performance of a website against the three, will help improve the page experience of a website.

To enhance the Core Web Vitals Page Experience on WordPress, website users should implement best practices and speed up their site. Developing a more optimized and lightweight site will help provide an improved user experience on Google’s metrics.

Mobile-friendliness

Another important factor that will help improve the page experience of a website is to know whether or not the site design is mobile-friendly. The Google Search Console or Google’s standalone Mobile-Friendly Test tool are the two tools that will help in the determination of the mobile-friendliness of a website.

To enhance the Mobile-Friendliness Page signal on WordPress, website users should fix issues displayed in the Mobile Usability report. Increasing the font size, setting the viewport, and adding more space between buttons will make them more tappable.

Safe browsing

To provide improved UX and rank high on SERP to users, a website has to be free of any malware issues, deceptive content, harmful downloads, and other similar issues as indicated by Google Search Console.

Use the Security issues report under Security and Manual Actions in Google Search Console for checking for issues related to safe browsing.

WordPress site owners should implement the best WordPress security practices for safeguarding their website from malicious actors that infect the website with harmful downloads and malware.

Look at the Security Issues report in Google Search Console to learn about any visible malware and check whether or not the Safe Browsing filter of Google has flagged you.

HTTPS usage

The advancements in technology are also making the website more prone to harmful viruses, and malicious programs. A secure website is more preferred by users. So, you need to ensure that the website has an SSL certificate and uses HTTPS protocol.

No intrusive pop-ups on mobile

Intrusive interstitials cover the maximum area of the screen that makes the content less accessible. In this way, they offer a terrible experience to your website visitors.

A website owner should ensure that their website doesn’t display any intrusive interstitials or pop-ups to mobile users who click from Google search. All of these are vital factors that can help improve the overall page experience of any website.

Part 6: Conclusion

The key for enhancing the ranking of a website after the Page Experience update is to create the best quality content and optimize the webpage so that it provides a good user experience.

Though you may get enough time before the implementation of the update, it is advised not to wait and optimize your pages quickly. The above information will help you enhance the user experience now, and also after the implementation of the update.