A HUGE Google Update Is Coming: Make Sure Your Website Is User-Friendly!

Google is updating it’s algorithm in June … and this one is BIG!

The focus of this update is ‘user experience’. For businesses, this means that if your website is user-friendly and fast, you’ll be rewarded by ranking higher in search results on Google and getting more web traffic. Who doesn’t want that?

You might wonder how Google can identify a user-friendly page? According to Google, page experience is a set of signals that measure how users perceive their experience of a webpage.

Mobile-Friendliness Is Key

Google will also use these signals to consider user experience with your website on mobile phones. Many websites are well designed for desktop interaction, but the moment users access these pages on mobile it can be a very different story!

Is your site mobile-friendly? A quick way to check is to view your own site on mobile and see if you’re happy with the experience. Does it look good? Does it load quickly? Is it easy to read and navigate? If not, you may have some work to do.

The Three Pillars of Google’s Page Experience

The three pillars of the Google page experience update are:

• Loading Performance (how fast does content appear on the screen?)
• Responsiveness (how fast does the page react to user input?)
• Visual Stability (do things move around on the screen while loading?)

Loading Performance is measured by Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) which checks how long it takes for the largest piece of content to appear on the screen. This could be an image or a block of text. A good grade gives users the feeling that the site loads fast. A slow site can lead to frustration.

Responsiveness is measured by First Input Delay (FID). This checks how long it takes for the site to react to the first interaction. This could be a tap on a button of a click of a link. A good grade here gives the user a sense that a site is quick to react to input and, therefore, responsive. Slow, again, leads to frustration. Steph – the pic below is too small

Visual Stability is measured by Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). Have you ever been to a website that’s jumpy? Just about to click a button and it moved. Reading a post and lost your place as the content moved around. Found a good t-shirt and about to select it, but it moved down and you clicked a tank top instead? That’s why CLS is so important.

Check Your Website’s User Experience

If you’re looking to improve your website for better user experience, but don’t know where to start, there are a few steps that can be taken.

1. iSonic can run tests with Google Search Console and analyse your website’s Core Web Vitals report for both Desktop and Mobile.
2. This report will allow iSonic to see your scores for LCP, FID and CLS and highlight whether these need to be improved.
3. iSonic can also run Page Experience tests and analyse any other issues that may impact your website’s SEO. We can give you advice on areas needing improvement to enhance user experience on your website.

Impact On Your Website & SEO

If you notice any changes to your site’s page ranking in the coming months, or have any questions about the update, please get in touch.

Remember that Google will always reward you for a well designed, engaging and informative website. What’s important for this update is to ensure your website is easy for people to use when trying to find out more about your business.

Making sure that the mobile version of your website is just as user-friendly as your desktop website will help improve your page experience score and ensure you don’t lose traffic as the update rolls-out.

Contact Details:

Office: 1300 924 356

Email: [email protected]