Page Experience is a Google update that is meant to push website owners to improve the user experience on their sites. However, not many can wrap their head around the concept and are left behind as a result. We are going to share everything you need to know about Page Experience so you can use this knowledge to improve your site’s ranking using a SEO rank tracker and other tools.
Why Is Page Experience Important?
Page experience as the term suggests is an umbrella that defines how users interact with a page and experience it. While searching for information and sources over the internet, users come across many complications.
As you already know everything has gone mobile nowadays. Users prefer shopping, doing business, and conducting every task on their smartphones. This means the sites need to be mobile-friendly as well. If users observe that the sites are lacking or taking too much time to load, the user experience is going to be bad.
However, this is where page experience comes in. Users will only return or suggest a site to others if it provides them with the information they need within a matter of a few seconds. At the same time, relevant information and online reputation are crucial too but they do not directly account for the case of page experience.
Page experience is important because it plays a significant role in a site’s SEO strategy and web design. A badly designed page is hardly going to attract any users and the same goes for leads or conversions. To prevent such circumstances, Google did its users a favor and introduced the page experience algorithm.
How Does The Google Page Experience Work?
Back in the day, Page Experience had an indirect impact on the SEO rankings. But, since 2021, it is a direct ranking factor for Google. However, considering the scope of the term, many people were skeptical about Google’s accuracy and measuring ability.
So, how does Google check the page experience of a site?
To judge the user experience, Google will consider some key metrics that already contribute to the rankings in some form. To begin with, the Largest Contentful Paint or LCP is a method of checking the page load speed of a site. It checks how long the biggest element on the page in question takes to load.
Next, Cumulative layout Shift or CLS, measures the movement of the page’s elements while uploading. If the user observes the elements jumping around the page, it is surely going to be an awful experience. For instance, a user might come across a relevant picture at the top of the page only to find it suddenly disappearing and moving to the bottom. As a result, the user will have to scroll down or swipe down and put extra effort into finding the image again. This could be a frustrating situation.
Furthermore, First input delay, or FID, measures how quickly the elements on the page react when clicked. You might have visited some sites where you clocked a button and it took too much time for the element to load. This accounts for a bad user experience.
Moving on, mobile-friendliness simply means whether a site is optimized for mobile devices or not. As mentioned earlier, smartphones have become mini-personal computers and users do not have time to pull out their laptops to conduct a task online each time.
Unfortunately, some sites are only optimized for personal computers and not smartphones, which makes for a bad user experience. This means the users cannot access the required information on the go.
Moreover, HTTPS is another important factor that determines the security of the users while they interact with the site. Some sites such as banking, booking, etc. require personal information. There, users have to enter their personal information that they don’t want anyone else to see. However, this information can be stolen which is more plausible if the site doesn’t have HTTPS. This is the reason a site having a secure HTTP connection is of utmost importance and adds to the user experience.
Moreover, HTTPS also ensures a that intrusive interstitials don’t appear. They are the popup ads or a page that appear when you’re downloading something from a site or visiting it. They are one of the most irritating things a site can have.
Finally, safe browsing is a key factor considered by Google to ensure a page does not contain harmful malware, deceptive content, or anything that might lead to serious issues.
This is why if you check website ranking on Google for sites which are abiding by the above rules, will have a better ranking.
How To Optimize Your Site For Page Experience?
Now that you are familiar with the key elements Google takes under consideration for measuring Page Experience, it is time to discuss ways you can optimize the page experience for the users.
Optimize Page Load Speeds
The first thing that Google looks at while measuring or analyzing page experience is page load speed. Many of the vitals of page experience revolve around page load speed. So, the best way to start is by optimizing the load speeds of the pages.
Fortunately, there are many ways of improving page load speed including reducing HTTP requests, compressing and optimizing images, using browser HTTP caching, limiting the use of external scripts, minifying CSS and JavaScript files, and many other ways.
If you were to focus on each of these factors individually, you would be able to improve your page’s load speed significantly.
Implement Responsive Design
Another way of improving Google’s assessment of your page experience is by opting for a responsive design. Responsive design simply means that your site is optimized for multiple devices. This allows the site to structure itself regardless of the platform it is running on.
Ideally, a site optimized for a personal computer should function the same way as your smartphone. If it takes longer to upload on either and is slow on the other, it means the site’s design needs to be improved.
Ensure The Pages Are Safe
Safety is of top priority especially if you are selling or running a business online through your site. Considering the increasing number of cyber attacks, you need to make sure your site has top-notch security to help keep users’ private information safe and secure.
This is a complex task. If you cannot do it yourself, you should hire an expert who can do it for you. Additionally, some people are very finicky about their privacy and personal information. As a site owner, it is your job to ensure their information is always safe.
For that, you will need to use HTTP or other malware protection programs as well. Even if it costs you, it will help improve your Page Experience rating in the long run.
Conclusion
Page Experience has a huge role to play in improving not only the user experience but also the quality. Users won’t stick around for sites that take too long to load or aren’t secure. That said, keeping the above-mentioned factors in mind, you should start working on the individual factors of Google Page Experience and other ranking factors to improve your ranking. And use your search engine rank report of your site for better optimizations. This is the best way to stand out in this competitive online world.
