Recently, Google stated that it will start using its latest algorithm for SEO ranking in 2021. This means that all current tools and techniques that you use to attract visitors to your website will soon become ineffective. As such, there is a high tendency that your web page will leave its present position. It will either rank higher or lower, depending on how favorable or unfavorable the algorithm is.
For you to benefit from this development when it's implemented, you have to understand what the new algorithm itself means and how it works. This will help you to put necessary things in place ahead of 2021 so as to increase your web's traffic.
So, what exactly is Google's new algorithm page experience?
Google's algorithm page experience focuses on how easy or difficult web users find it to use a website or its services. In other words, the algorithm ranks websites based on how friendly their interface is for users. The purpose of this is to ensure that only websites that give users satisfactory experience rank at the top.
By implication, the more your website is friendly to users, the higher its chance of ranking at the top and vice versa. For instance, if users experience no difficulty at all exploring your website, the algorithm will rank your website to the top.
However, if users have negative experience on your web pages, your website cannot be among those at the front pages. For instance, if too many frustrating notifications pop up on your website all in the name of ads, this algorithm will de-rank you automatically.
Google itself attempted to explain what its algorithm page experience is. In its word:
The page experience signal measures aspects of how users perceive the experience of interacting with a web page. Optimizing for these factors makes the web more delightful for users across all web browsers and surfaces, and helps sites evolve towards user expectations on mobile. We believe this will contribute to business success on the web as users grow more engaged and can transact with less friction.
Why is the Algorithm Important?
As stated earlier, what Google aims to achieve by ranking websites based on this algorithm is excellent delivery of services and users' satisfaction.
Google understands that the only way to make websites design their pages in a way that users love is to attach SEO ranking to page experience.
Since everyone wants his or her website to rank at the top, the new algorithm will force websites to make necessary amendments that will make users enjoy their pages.
It is, therefore, easy now to suggest the kinds of websites that will make it to Google's front pages.
Did you just say websites with good back clicks? Or you think it's websites with the buttoned up on page code? Not at all!
Google wants to rank websites that give users positive page experience? Yet to understand what I mean? Worry not, I will explain further.
When I say websites that users love most, I am not referring to websites with the highest number of Google searches. Of course, queries help website to rank but that is not what the new algorithm is all about.
More often than not, only popular brands get searched on Google frequently. This way, they get a lot of daily visitors. What this implies is that the present method of ranking through users' queries favor popular brands even if their page experience is not user-friendly.
With Google's latest algorithm, however, an end has come to this. The popularity of your brand will no longer be a yardstick for ranking your website. Rather, Google will rank your website based on how much users enjoy using it.
I know you are about to ask how you can rank your website with the new page experience algorithm. Relax, for this post will explain the processes involved in details.
Summarily, all you need to do to ensure that the new algorithm rank your website up is to optimize users' experience on your website i.e. make your website friendly to users.
This leads us to discussing how you can optimize users' experience on your website. Follow the instructions below to achieve this.
How to Optimize User Experience on your Website
Before we proceed, I urge you to leave your mind open to learn, unlearn and relearn.
It is true that switching from a technique of SEO ranking to another could be an experience with mixed feelings. But what matters is the ranking of your website. Hence, I see no reason why you should be reluctant to learn new techniques.
Considering its name, it is very possible to think some knowledge of Mathematics will be needed to use Google's page experience algorithm. However, this is totally untrue.
Apart from the fact that using Google's algorithm to optimize users' experience on your website is an easy task, it is also an interesting development.
However, feel free to contact us if you need help of any sort on optimizing user experience using Google's new algorithm. We are renowned for helping brands increase traffic on their website. We will be glad to help you!
Now, let's get to business.
1. Increase your Website's Speed
The easiest way to give users a negative and frustrating experience on your website is to make its speed slow. The slower your website loads, the worse user experience will be. But if your website loads quickly, people will enjoy visiting it.
The relationship between SEO ranking and fast web speed cannot be overemphasized, even before Google's decision to introduce its new algorithm. The only difference is that, upon the implementation of page experience, web speed will play a greater role in SEO ranking.
Ideally, your website should load completely between 2 and 4 seconds. Anything beyond that is slow, and will make users hate your website.
Also, heavy websites experience high rate of bounce. Bounce is the term used to refer to the number of web users who visits your website and leave after viewing only one page.
Specifically, websites that load between one and three seconds experience 32% of bounce. Websites that load between one and five seconds experience 90% of bounce. Websites that load between one and six seconds experience 106% of bounce while websites that load between one and ten seconds experience 123% of bounce.
The image below summarizes the rate at which different websites experience bounce.
To avoid high rate of bounce and other ugly incidents that could frustrate visitors on your website as a result of slow loading, it's advisable you take different measures to improve your website's speed.
One of these measures is to minimize your HTTP requests which Yahoo claims to account for 80% of web page's loading time. You should ascertain the number of HTTP your site uses and remove unnecessary ones to boost your website's speed.
To do this from Google Chrome, explore Developer Tools and click on the page you want to check. From there, select ''inspect" then "network". The command will lead you to the page below.
Below the column titled "Name" are files on your page. The column titled "Size" shows the capacity of each file while "Time" displays how long it takes each file to load.
Deleting redundant files will create more space for other files to load faster.This is because, when redundant files are deleted, the number of requests reduces.
However, this measure might not be effective if not combined with file combination. File combination involves has to do with adding compatible files together to free more space for faster page loading.
All you have to do is install a plugin called Rocket, and go to "Static Files". This will take you to the page below.
Mark files you would like to combine from the options available, and click "Save Changes" below the page.
After these have been done, you can rest assured that your web pages will load faster. Thereby, users will have positive experience visiting your website, and this will help your website rank at the top.
2. Evaluate your Results Using your Competitors' Results
In SEO ranking, one of the best ways of determining whether your results are good or bad is by knowing the success and failure rate of your competitors.
The fact that you have taken all necessary steps to make users enjoy visiting your website doesn't mean you should sit back and relax. There are more to do to rank higher than your competitors.
One of these is constant comparison of your website's ranking to that of your competitors. This will let you know whether your efforts are adequate or you need to do more.
When your competitors rank higher than you, it might not necessarily be because your website is not user-friendly. Rather, what that means is that your competitors' websites are more user-friendly than yours.
And if your website ranks higher than those of your competitors, it means you should keep the good work up. And if possible, make your website more enjoyable to use to continue to get ranked at the top by Google.
There are many ways of doing this. You can use a wide range of tools including Ubersuggest SEO Analyzer.
The software allows you to generate a traffic report of your website, and those of your competitors for the purpose of comparison.
Since you can access your website traffic report from the admin section of your dashboard, you will only need the software to analyze your competitors' traffic.
When you access the SEO Analyzer page, type in your competitor's URL and click on "Search"
Then click on "Top Pages" from the side bar options.
The page will generate a report like this:
What the image above displays are the most visited pages on your competitor's website. Out of these pages, you are interested in only those at the top because they are the ones competing with your pages for Google ranking.
As such, try to visit those pages and interact with each of them to see why they rank higher than yours. When you discover what they are doing right to please visitors, ensure you do more to overtake them.
3. Fix Broken Links to Limit Error 404
Apart from a situation whereby a visitor enters a wrong URL, all other causes of broken links come from web owner or third party.
These causes include removal of linked web page and firewall blocking access to the destination. Irrespective of what the cause is, your concern is to fix it in order to give users the kind of experience that they like.
Run a random test on links on your website to identify broken ones. And once identified, fix them by either linking them to an accessible destination or by removing the link.
4. Install Ubersuggest Chrome Extension
You might be wondering what this has to with Google ranking. It is normal you do, anyway because the relationship seems unclear.
I want to believe that you have not forgotten the secret of ranking with Google's new algorithm. Let me remind you if you have.
The secret of ranking with Google's new algorithm is giving users positive experience on your website!
Now, let's proceed to discuss how Ubersuggest Chrome Extension will help you achieve this. If Ubersuggest Chrome Extension is installed on your PC, your Google search result will look like the image below.
From the picture above, you can see some numbers in each of the results. One of them is domain score which shows how popular a website is. The higher the score of a website, the more popular the website is.
Another number you should study is the link score which suggests a website's probability of ranking at the top. The higher the link number of a website, the higher the website's chance of ranking higher.
However, these numbers have little influence in Google's new algorithm. As mentioned earlier, what matter is the page experience.
I told you make this search not because of websites with high domain and links scores, but because of those with low scores in the front page.
If a website with a low score manages to rank at the top, it means users enjoy its interface. Click on such websites; study them and try to figure out what makes them easy for users.
Your findings will help you to improve different aspects of your website so as to make it friendlier to users. Consequently, your website will rank higher!
Conclusion
Get ready for the future today by making changes that will help your website rank higher when Google's new algorithm is finally implemented. And if you need help on any of the tips discussed above, contact us immediately. We will be glad to help you rank your website higher.
