The way your users experience and benefit from your content is extremely important to Google. Now, with the new Google updates, User Experience (UX) has become more important than ever before. The stronger your website UX is, the higher your ranking becomes - and the more Google is willing to show your page to other users who are looking for similar content.
What Google Algorithm Updates Were Made Recently?
In recent years, Google has made significant changes to its algorithms. Some were basic core updates that generally improved their search engine efficiency, while others were more specific. For example, on January 22, 2020, they announced that the URLs in featured snippets would no longer appear as organic results, and this significantly impacted the CTR (click-through rate) for many websites.
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More recently, Google introduced passage indexing and passage ranking. This impacted an estimated 7% of search queries. Their latest UX update is now out, having started in May.
What Comes Under Google’s New Updates?
The following factors will now be prioritized by Google, as this update is focused on user experience (UX) and on-page experience:
- The efficiency of your core website vitals (such as page load time and visual stability)
- The security of your website and the presence of an SSL certificate
- The mobile-friendliness of your website
- The safety and trustworthiness of your website
- The lack of intrusiveness, such as pop-ups
Google’s now prioritizing your website friendliness, so a positive page experience will do a lot to improve your rankings. If you want to make sure your website is ranked positively by Google, the best course of action is to conduct a website audit with the above-mentioned points in mind.
How Will the New Google Page Experience Updates Impact SEO?
Though it’s now more important than ever to make sure your website garners virtuous UX, creating good content is still vital. Google clearly states on their website that creating great web content is still as important as it was before the new update.
Google also indicated that they will soon release a visual indicator marking the websites with the best user experience. This may impact SEO through changing CTR because users who are browsing will more likely click on websites that are distinguished with this new visual indicator.
Optimizing My Website Design to Benefit from the Google UX Update
With the new user experience updates taking effect, it’s important to use the available information to optimize your website. Conducting a website audit is the best way to ensure your website is in compliance with the new updates. For example, you may run an audit and notice your website has issues with slow loading time, or note that the layout of your website makes it difficult to locate key information. If this is the case, your SEO and IT team should shift their focus to increasing the speed of your website and improving web design, so your users thoroughly enjoy their experience and Google gives you a higher ranking.
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Another way you can take advantage of the new algorithms is by introducing separate CTAs (calls to action) that are customized to how your customers think, and also including image alt text to explain the appearance of an image if it fails to load.
By focusing on improving UX through perfecting the speed, design, and SEO of your website, you can stay on top of the new updates and use them to bring in more traffic and improve your rankings. For help improving your website’s SEO, auditing your website, and optimizing your online experience for digital marketing audiences, contact Ironmark’s marketing experts.
