How to Prepare Your Website for Google’s Page Experience

Google will begin using Google Page Experience as a search ranking criterion in mid-June in order to demonstrate its commitment to rewarding sites that offer the best online experience to its users. Here's what you need to learn and the steps to take to be prepared.

What exactly is Google Page Experience?

Google Page Experience is a new feature of Google's search algorithm which will affect the ranking of websites. Google Page Experience encompasses all aspects of how a person interacts with web pages and the "page user experience" the site offers. 

Why Is Google Page Experience Important?

Google will assess and rank websites based on Google Page Experience; thus, the better the user experience is for your website greater the chance it is to be ranked higher in the search results.

How Do I Get My Website Ready for Google Page Experience?

The ranking factors that are used in Google Page Experience are novel. Google has often highlighted the importance of website speed, mobile friendliness as well as various other Google Page Experience aspects, so your website must be optimized for the four factors required for the "excellent" Google Page Experience score:

Mobility usability Websites must be free of mobile-friendly issues like too-small text or plugins that aren't supported, an unresponsive design, and clickable components that are placed too close to each other.

Security of websites Website security: A site must have no security vulnerabilities, such as dangerous or misleading materials, such as malware or phishing.

The website must use HTTPS, which is the safer variant of the HTTP protocol for communication.

Google punishes websites that use intrusive interstitials. They are pop-up advertisements or overlays that disrupt your user's experiences.

The fifth element is a brand new stats developed by Google named Core Web Vitals, which we'll explore in more detail later on. Utilize the brand updated Page Experience report in Google Search Console to evaluate your site's Google Page Experience performance.

What exactly is the Google Core Web Vitals?

Google's Core Web Vitals are a set of benchmarks designed to evaluate the speed and accuracy of web page loading from a user's point of perspective. It is the Core Web Vitals, which focuses on technical features that help to provide the most effective web development services for website users, evaluates three key components:

The time it takes to load The duration it takes for a web page's main content to be loaded. The Largest Contentful Painting (LCP) can be described as a number that measures how quickly the biggest object (picture or text.) appears on the web page. It is displayed on the page. LCP measure for your website should not exceed 2.5 seconds.

Interactivity: The time it takes for a site to process an interaction from a user, like clicking a button after it's been initiated. This number, also known as the First Input Delay (FID), determines the website's ability to respond to the user's desire to take action. The FID should not exceed 100 milliseconds.

The extent to which content on an internet page alters or changes when pop-up ads or other content interferes with or alters the content that the person is expecting to see. Cumulative layout shift (CLS) can be described as a number that must be less than 0.1.

Be aware that these aren't single-time metrics; in order to get an accurate picture of the users' experience, Google collects this information regularly and assigns scores based on the performance of a site over the course of 30 days.

The penalty isn't hefty for failure to meet Core Web Vitals requirements; however, sites that are in compliance with the standards for all three criteria will be rewarded with a rank rise as Google starts to incorporate Page Experience and Core Web Vitals in June.

Check out your Core Web Vitals report in Google Search Console to see whether your website is in line with Core Web Vitals benchmarks that will tell you which pages on your website have a low score.

What Should I Do to Get Ready for Page Experience and Core Web Vitals?

Verify your site and make any necessary changes. Google suggests that the site of a web design and development firm be up and running within 3 minutes or less. It should take less than 2 seconds if it's an eCommerce-related service. If your site loads slower, you'll see lower bounce rates, fewer conversions, and less satisfaction. Many websites do not meet this standard. In the study of 5 million pages online, the average load time for desktops was 10.3 seconds and 27.3 seconds for mobile devices.

While Core Web Vitals LCP evaluation isn't identical to the speed of your site and performance, making sure all the sections of your website are loading as quickly as possible can increase the LCP score. Are you not sure if your website meets the requirements for speed? If you test your website's speed and receive recommendations for improving the speed of your website.

Switch to HTTPS. From 2014 on, Google has been pushing owners of websites to use the HTTPS protocol; in addition, this Page Experience upgrade makes it mandatory for a "good" score. Utilizing the safer HTTPS protocol, which comes with encryption through the SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) or TLS (Transport Layer Security) certificate, will not only boost your rankings on search engines but protect your website and your customers from fraud as well as security breaches.

Create a mobile-friendly website. At least for the past five years, mobile-friendliness has been a crucial Google ranking factor. And since mobile users now account for 55% of internet traffic, optimizing your site for mobile is a standard best practice. Make use of Google's Mobile-Friendly test, look up the mobile usability report within Google Search Console and follow these steps to create a fantastic mobile-friendly experience on your site. Ensure that your site is providing an enjoyable experience to users on mobile devices.

Improve your photos. Images are often the main factor in a site's performance, which is why it's important that they're optimized to load quickly and provide a smooth mobile-friendly experience. Reduce file size for pictures and optimize background images, or replace them with solid colors or patterns, shift large pictures or videos to the lower part of the screen and use the alt-text descriptions.

Excellent website content. Content on websites isn't included as part of Google Page Experience, but that doesn't mean it's less important. According to Google Content, it is more important than page experience. "While all the elements of the page experience are crucial but we'll choose pages that provide the best information even if specific aspects of the experience are poor," Google stated in a blog post-on-page experience. "Having impressive, pertinent information doesn't mean you have to sacrifice having a good experience on the page."