Google is now rolling out the Page Experience Update for desktop search. It was announced in a tweet published by Google Search Console on Twitter. Your website’s user experience is a vital part of turning your leads into conversion. It covers everything in an end user’s interaction with a website, from navigation, clicking the call-to-action button, adding products to the cart, and completing the buying process.
And now, with the latest Google algorithm update, a page user experience is considered a top search ranking factor. Here are tips on how to improve your website’s page user experience from the leading digital marketing company in Los Angeles:
- Use the Core web vitals.
- Improve your website speed.
- Remove any obstructive elements.
- Make your website easy to navigate.
- Fix any 404 errors.
- Optimize your website.
- Pay attention to aesthetics.
1 – Use the Core web vitals.
Core Web Vitals are metrics set by Google to measure a web page’s user experience. Currently, it has three metrics that measure a website’s loading, interactivity, and visual stability. These metrics include the LCP or the Largest Contentful Paint, the FID or the First Input Delay, and the CLS or the Cumulative Layout Shift.
Google released recommended targets for each metric that web developers should follow to ensure that visitors have a good user experience. You can check the score of your website’s core web vitals by using these tools:
- Chrome User Experience Report
- PageSpeed Insights
- Google Search Console
As for their core web vitals, here are the following recommended target scores:
- LCP – the target score for a website’s loading performance should be within 2.5 seconds.
- FID – the target score for the interactivity should be 100 milliseconds
- CLS – the target score of visual stability should maintain a score of 0.1 or less.
2 – Improve your website speed.
A faster page speed is more efficient as it provides a better on-page user experience to your website visitors. In fact, according to Kissmetrics, if a web page takes more than three seconds to load, 40% of users are likely to hit the back button and choose a different website in the search result. Walmart reported that with every second of improvement in their page speed, they saw a 2% increase in their conversion rate.
To improve your website’s page speed, you can use Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool. It provides a detailed report of your website’s page speed. It will also give you recommendations on how you can improve the page speed of your website to deliver a better page user experience.
3 – Remove any obstructive elements.
Never add any elements that can obstruct the critical aspects of your website. Google can penalize your website if it crawls any intrusive or obstructive ads such as pop-outs on your web page. According to Search Engine Journal, it should only take a maximum of 15% of screen space when adding a pop-out ad. The main rule of thumb is to never add an element between the user and the content they are trying to read.
In fact, Google’s algorithm for mobile devices will penalize websites with intrusive or obstructive elements. Ensure that any pop-out details, whether an ad or the live chat interface, don’t obstruct any of your page’s content.
4 – Make your website easy to navigate.
In a report published by SmallBizTrends in 2019, 94% of online consumers say that the most important element they look for in a website is easy navigation. Simple navigation will allow your visitors to quickly get the answers they need from your website.
When designing your website’s navigation system, always consider how users interact and use your website. The goal of the navigation system is to guide users from Point A to Point B until it leads to conversion.
5 – Fix any 404 errors.
Websites with 404 pages can significantly affect a visitor’s page experience on your website. If Google’s algorithm notices them on your site, your SEO ranking will be negatively affected. Make sure to fix any of your existing 404 pages using Google Search Console. Here are four ways to do it:
- Redirect the page – The easiest way to fix a 404 page is to simply redirect the page to another relevant and working page.
- Restore the page – If many people are still going to the page despite it being deleted, then restore the page. You can then add content pointing users to the new landing page relevant to the topic.
- Check and correct the link – For any broken links you encounter on your website, make sure to edit the link and point them to the correct URL. This way, you won’t lead users into a non-working page.
- Create a custom 404 page – The best thing you can do if you can’t restore the page or redirect customers to another page is create a custom 404 page. By doing so, you can make sure that any visits aren’t going to waste.
6 – Optimize your website.
Optimization isn’t more than just building links and ensuring that Google can find your website online. It is also about improving your website’s whole system so that users can find what they are looking for while having a smooth experience when navigating your website.
The best way to optimize your website for user experience is to understand your target audience better. The first step is to analyze behavioral data: what pages they mostly visit in your website and elements they mostly interact with. From there, start to reanalyze the design and meta-data of your homepage and the landing pages they mostly visit. Use tools like Google Search Console and Pagespeed Insights to further improve each landing page’s optimization.
7 – Pay attention to aesthetics.
Aesthetics is more than just the look of your website, but also the feel of it. As the Interaction Design Organization explains, the aesthetics of a website can impact a website’s user experience in many ways. Marketers should use aesthetics to complement their website’s usability and enhance its functionality through using attractive layouts.
Remember that humans are visual creatures, and they will often judge a website based on its design before its usability. So use your aesthetics to guide them to continue using your website or checking your product. A website with an excellent aesthetic design should attract users and make them more tolerant of any usability issues they may encounter. This is an effect called aesthetic-usability by the UX-design pioneer, Don Norman.
According to Norman, marketers must design for user experience and optimize usability. Always make sure that your aesthetics align with your web design’s functionality.
