What is Page Experience, and How Does It Affect SEO?

In an age where everyone has a website, you need more than just good design to capture the attention of Google. There is a staggering amount of competition in the online world, and you need to make sure your website is the best in order to stay above your competitors. It’s the worst feeling in the world to see your competition placed above you in Google search results. How can you beat these websites and make it to the front page of Google?

The best way to cement your place in the top five search results is to earn high marks on your Page Experience. The first step to doing this, however, is understanding what Page Experience is and how it is measured.

Page Experience, Defined

Page Experience refers to a particular Google search ranking factor, where every important quality of a website is assessed individually to determine how the site as a whole should rank. A website’s entire Page Experience includes:

• User Experience
• Responsiveness
• Page Load Time
• Page Render Quality
• Amount of Pop-Ups on Page

If all of these individual traits receive high marks, then the website itself will earn a place on the first page of Google search results. Google only displays websites with exceptional Page Experience on their first page, and they do this because they need to build on the trust and rapport that users have in their platform. If you are consistently getting poorly designed and non functional sites when you search Google, you may consider turning to another platform. As the most popular search engine online today, Google can accept nothing less than perfection when displaying websites in its top search results.

How Does Google Rank Page Experience?

It would be impossible for Google employees to manually check every website on the net and rank their page experience, which is why Google has developed a few different metrics that automatically assess a website’s Page Experience. These electronic algorithms are called the Core Vitals, and include:

1. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
2. Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
3. First Input Delay (FID)

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

LCP focuses on the load time of the main content of a web page. This primarily includes images and videos, as text loads rather quickly since it requires less data. The prime LCP goal you should aim for is 2.5 seconds or below.

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

CLS refers to a page’s ability to remain static, especially around text. Automatic scrolling without prompting and section jumps are good indicators that a website has poor CLS. Users reading content on your site may be tempted to find their information elsewhere if they keep losing their place as a result of issues with your CLS.

CLS is calculated by combining the size of a shifting page element with the amount of distance it moves on a screen. A good CLS score to shoot for is 0.1. Anything above this will need to be addressed, especially if your score is 0.25.

First Input Delay (FID)

FID is a measurement of a page’s response time to the first user interaction it receives. Clicking a link or a button can be considered a user interaction. An ideal page response time is a tenth of a second—pretty much a blink of an eye. If your page delay time is even a third of a second or above, you won’t be finding yourself on the first page of Google.

How can I improve my Page Experience?

The best way to improve your Page Experience is to gauge where you’re at with your scores, and then make the appropriate adjustments on your site. There are a few free tools from Google that you can use to monitor your Page Experience, including:

• Google Search Console
• PageSpeed Insights
• Lighthouse Audits

With the data displayed in these tools, you can see exactly what needs to be improved. However, while you have everything you need to get a good Page Experience score, it can sometimes be difficult to translate all of the data you’re seeing into something you can use to improve your website. If you are feeling overwhelmed by the information, it may be time to turn to an internet marketing service provider.

Improve Your Page Experience with ClickReady Marketing

The team at ClickReady Marketing can assess your current Page Experience scores and make sense of the data in your free Google monitoring tools. We will then take this information and make adjustments to your site until it meets Google’s standards. With our local SEO packages, we can help your site rank for specific keywords and attract your target audience, while also keeping your Page Experience scores high.

Choose ClickReady Marketing as your experts in Page Experience optimization. Contact us today to get started: (404) 923-0015