Mon, 12 Apr 2021
Get ahead with Google's new AlGoreRhythm
Google’s new algorithm: Page Experience.
It boils down to three indicators:
- 1. Page load time - the time it takes for the main content to appear
- 2. Page interaction time - how long between the user clicks or taps and the page reacts
- 3. Visual stability - how clear the decision path is to the user
Let’s use a real world metaphor. Imagine you want to buy a dictionary from a book shop.
OK, clearly, this is a real world example.
You turn up onsite ready to purchase only there’s no way-finding signage, they haven’t gotten round to unpacking and categorising their stock yet - the store is stuffed wall to wall with dictionaries, thesauruses, books about books (meta!) and other words for these books (like wordyword thing, story rectangle and ‘the inedible paper sandwich), there’s no one there to help you, it’s a real maze, so much so you can’t find your way to the checkout or the end of this sentence.
OK, but what's the moral of this story? Even if your website is jam packed with all the right content, it won't convert to sales with a crappy user experience.
Google wants the best experience for its users.
What can you do to get ready?
Do an audit.
Sorry, I should never use the ‘Audit’ word so close to the end of the tax year. Let’s call it a UX (User Experience) health check.
Google has an impressive collection of tools that you can use to test the responsiveness and mobile friendliness of your website’s pages.
Page speed insights
This free Google tool allows you to check the speed score of your site on a scale of 1 to 100.
A healthy speed score should be 80+
Mobile friendliness test
Learn if your site is mobile responsive or not.
Crazy Egg
Then, there are handy third party tools, like this heat mapping one.
Once you set it running, this tool will map user behaviour on pages that you select. After a couple of weeks, as the name suggests, it shows you the hot and not-so-hot activity points on your site.
With this tool you can map every single click and every scroll that people take, see how users are interacting with your webpage, and identify areas where they might be getting frustrated.
If your tests return poor results, what then?
As with the user experience on your site, so to it is with the user experience of your life. You now have decisions, which begin with - do I know enough about websites to fix this?
Then, if no, do I have time to learn? Then, if no, Imagic. Optimal user outcome in just three decisions.
PS: Keep creating better content than your competitors.
Despite huge emphasis on usability, Google have made it clear that great content will still rank highly in Google Search, regardless of poor page experience.
To wrap it all up in a summary burrito.
Having a heads up about an algorithm change, for once, is a huge advantage.
Take this rare opportunity to fix usability issues on your website and improve your search rankings to get a leg up on your competition.
If that’s too much... Get in touch and let our SEO specialists take a deep dive into your website with a magnifying glass and Holmes™ pipe, and we’ll optimise it using best practice methodology.