Optimise your Site for the New Google Algorithm Update

Towards the end of last year Google announced a new algorithm update that included page experience signals in search ranking would be rolling out this coming May. These new metrics were introduced as Google moves towards a user experience (UX) orientated stance. May is now fast approaching and you need to be ready. This article will help you understand how to optimise your site for the Google algorithm update to achieve a better user experience and better search rankings.

What is Page Experience?

Google says “page experience is a set of signals that measure how users perceive the experience of interacting with a web page beyond its pure information value”. It includes Core Web Vitals, which are a set of more recent metrics that measure real-world user experience for:

1. loading performance
2. interactivity, and
3. visual stability of your pages.

Core Web Vitals indicate whether your site delivers a fast and (what Google calls) a delightful experience to your users. You need to focus on these impactful metrics first before undertaking other optimisations. I’ll cover these core web vitals in more depth shortly. But also to note that page experience also includes the existing search signals of: mobile-friendliness, safe-browsing, HTTPS, and intrusive interstitials which you can read more about in my blog post here. Both these articles provide you with the full optimisation page experience basics.

Understanding Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals are made up of three specific page speed and user interaction measurements: largest contentful paint, first input delay, and cumulative layout shift.

 

1. Largest Contentful Paint (Loading performance)

Largest contentful paint measures the loading performance of a web page. This means the time from when the page starts loading to when the core (largest) content on the page is rendered properly on your screen. For clarity, content means text, images, as well as other page elements.  If a user is hanging around for more than 2 seconds waiting on your page to load the core content, then you’ll be penalised in your rankings. But you may also be penalised by your users who won’t hang around for a poorly performing website to load. You can check your largest contentful paint score by using Google Search Console or other free tools such as Pingdom, or  GTMetrix and inserting the URL of your site. The image below shows results on GTMetrix from a poorly performing site. You should be aiming for between 1 and 2 seconds ideally but consideration must be taken into account what your site is and what it does. It can be justified to have a longer wait time if your site needs it.

What can you do about a Poor Loading Performance?

The great thing about these tools is that they provide you a breakdown of your pages and elements and the issues that you need to address. It’s easy enough for a business or a marketer to use these tools if you’re not sure. But it’s the responsibility of your development team or agency to ensure these get optimised where possible.

To improve your largest contentful paint time you need to speed up how quickly your server can deliver your main content. A summary of strategies to consider as provided by WPLift are as follows:

1. Improve server response times by choosing a better host, implementing caching, or other strategies.
2. Optimise your JavaScript and CSS to reduce blocking time/scripts.
3. Shrink the size of files – e.g. if your largest contentful paint element is an image, you want to reduce the size of that image. You should also compress other files with server-level compression such as Gzip or Brotli.
4. Use preconnect to speed up important resources if needed.

 

2. First Input Delay (Interactivity)

First Input Delay measures the time from when a user first interacts with your site (i.e. when they click a link, tap on a button etc) to the time when the browser is actually able to respond to that interaction. A low First Input Delay helps ensure that the page is usable. We have all felt the frustration when a website is not doing the function we are asking it to do. In this instance the measure is on the time it takes of the first interaction. This is all about first impressions and first impressions count a lot, right? But remember, these first impressions aren’t just about penalising slow functioning websites. First Input Delay is about to start influencing your website’s rankings.

First Input Delay can only be measured by real people interacting with your site. It cannot be measured by machines or tools. However, the metric can be emulated so you can find a score using a tool like GTMetrix. This works be measuring Total Block Time – this tells you how much time is blocked by scripts during your page loading process. For a good UX, aim for a Total Blocking Time of 150 milliseconds or less.

How do you optimise your web pages for this? Basically you should optimise your JavaScript across your site in every way possible. This could include

1. removing unused javascript
2. efficiently loading third party JavaScript (such as Google Analytics)
3. optimising javscipt as a whole i.e. merging and minifying all JavaScript files

You want a developer or an agency who knows their way around this. Having quality and clean code is must. It’s difficult for marketers to assess so choose an agency with a good reputation.

 

3. Cumulative Layout Shift (Visual stability)

Finally, onto the last of the three core web vitals. According to Search Engine Journal “Cumulative Layout Shift is the unexpected shifting of web page elements while the page is still downloading. The kinds of elements that tend to cause shift are fonts, images, videos, contact forms, buttons and other kinds of content.”

This is being introduced as a key metric because unstable layouts can result in poor user experiences on both mobile and desktop, resulting in high bounce rates. For example, you may be familiar with a scenario where you’ve waited for a page to load, then the button you intended to interact with has shifted down the screen just as you went to click on it. You may then have clicked on something else entirely such as an annoying ad.

How do you test it? Again, simply using your trusty tools such as Google Search Console or GT Metrix. The score is not provided in a time metric (i.e. milliseconds) but as a graded score. The criteria are as follows:

• 0.1 or less = good. Move on.
• 0.1 – 0.15 = ok but consider improvement
• 0.15 – 0.25 = longer than recommended
• 0.25 +  = much longer than recommended

How do you Optimise for it?

A summary of strategies include:

1. Specifying the width and height dimensions of image and video elements
2. Reduce layout shifts caused by ads, embeds, and iframes
3. Avoid inserting new content above existing content
4. Pre-load webfonts to avoid ‘The Flash of Invisible Text’
5. Avoid non-composited animations

 

If you’re a small business needing help on search optimising your website for the new Google algorithm update then The Craft Works is here to help you.

 

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