What you need to know about Google’s new page experience update
Google’s new Page Experience Update, set to rollout mid-June with the estimated completion date of August, will most likely have an impact on your search engine rankings. Simply put, the new update will rank sites with a poor page experience lower. Our research shows that over 80% of insurance websites have a 0% ranking against the new Page Experience indicators.
This update is designed to reward pages that offer great user experiences. Page experience is only one of Google’s many ranking factors, however, it is predicted that over time it will be weighted higher than other factors.
Signals (elements) of the Page Experience Update
Core Web Vitals are page speed metrics that are comprised of the following:
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): The amount of time it takes for the largest element on your site to load. To provide a good user experience, sites should strive to have LCP occur within the first 2.5 seconds of the page starting to load.
First Input Delay (FID): The amount of time it takes your site to respond to a user’s action such as clicking on a button. To provide a good user experience, sites should strive to have an FID of less than 100 milliseconds.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): This measures the amount of movement your page experiences while its loading. To provide a good user experience, sites should strive to have a CLS score of less than 0.1.
Other Signals:
The Page Experience Update will also be signaled by the following metrics, geared to give Google users a great overall experience when browsing sites.
Mobile-friendly: The page is mobile-friendly. Check if your page is mobile-friendly with the Mobile-Friendly Test.
Safe-browsing: The page doesn’t contain malicious (for example, malware) or deceptive (for example, social engineering) content. Check to see if your site has any safe-browsing issues with the Security Issues report.
HTTPS: HTTPS is an encrypted and secure version of HTTP. The new update will want to see that your page is served over HTTPS. Check if your site’s connection is secure.
No Intrusive Interstitials: Intrusive Interstitials are essentially pop-up ads that block the content on a mobile site page. The content on the page should be easily accessible to the user without anything blocking it.
How you can prepare for the Page Experience Update
We have compiled a quick checklist of items you can do now to best prepare for the upcoming update to minimize ranking effects on your site. It’s ok if you cannot achieve 100% of the list below. Try to get as high as possible, within your resource and technology capabilities. Google will compare your metrics against your insurance industry peers to determine rankings.
- Ensure your site is mobile friendly
- Resolve any safe-browsing issue
- Ensure your site runs on HTTPS
- Make sure that you’re not using interstitials in a way that makes content less accessible
- Ensure your Google Search Console account is setup correctly and review your websites Page Experience report. This GSC feature was newly launched by Google (to help us prepare for this update) and combines the existing Core Web Vitals report with other components of the page experience signals, such as HTTPS security, absence of intrusive interstitials, safe browsing status, and mobile friendliness.
- Review your Page Experience and Core Web Vitals in Google Search Console and resolve the issues flagged as ‘Failing U
- RLs’. These URLs are the ones that haven’t passed the page experience test. These will need the attention of your website developer.
Unfortunately, there may be elements on the new page experience analysis that your current website may not accomplish. It’s important that you do your best, but there may be foundational changes required to your website.
Our truWeb platform has already been optimized for these new updates, for more information on what our platform can do for your brokerage, connect with us!