Google is bringing out a new algorithm in May 2021 which may have an impact on your website performing well in Google search results. It’s called Google Page Experience and it’s a new ranking criteria that will assess the user experience of your website. Pages that previously performed well may go down in the rankings if the user experience is poor. And vice versa, those with great user experience may overtake you in the race to the top of Google’s search results.
This new ranking will be asking:
What are your site’s Core Web Vitals?
Is your site mobile friendly?
Does it have intrusive pop-ups and marketing?
Is your site using HTTPS and is it safe to browse?
Does your site contain malicious or misleading information?
These are criteria that Google has been considering for some time but now there will be more emphasis on it.
What are core web vitals?
These are things that Google uses to measure your website performance. It measures:
Loading performance (known as Largest Contentful Paint)
This is the speed at which the main content of your web page loads, particularly the content at the top. To provide a good experience, Google is looking for your page to load within 2.5 and 4 seconds. Anything else is considered poor by Google.
Interactivity (known as First Input Delay)
Google also wants to know how quickly someone can interact with your site eg. click on a button or link. If there are a lot of scripts (the code in the background) then this might affect your page loading. Google defines a good First Input Delay as less than 100 milliseconds (wow that’s quick!)
Visual stability or how the page builds (known as Cumulative Layout Shift)
This measures the unexpected shifting of web elements while the page is loading.This is referring to those annoying pages that change layout halfway through reading something so that you lose your place, or if you click on something and everything shifts around. Google is aware that this kind of interruption is annoying to users. Google views a good good user experience score of less than 0.1
How can I prepare for this new update?
Firstly, you need to know if your website is affected. Does your website perform well in tests? Once you know the status of your site then you can focus on making your page experience better which will attract more customers.
How do I know if my site is affected?
Hopscotch can help by offering you a simple Health Report. The report will include the results from the Core Web Vitals as mentioned above, as well as recommendations on how to improve your site’s performance. Paying attention to the health of your site will improve performance and ultimately get you more customers.
This report costs just £75. If you are interested in knowing the health of your site then get in touch and we can start getting you more customers.
Email hello@hopscotchdesign.co.uk or get in touch via the Contact page.