How to Improve Your Page Experience and Rank Higher

 

Do you feel like you're doing everything right, yet your search rankings just won't budge? Let's run a checklist of what Google ranks pages for:

• Helpful content
• Crawlability and indexability
• Mobile-friendliness
• Robust security measures 

If you've ticked all the boxes but are still struggling to rank higher, it's time to take a closer look at your page experience. If visitors have to wait forever for your pages to load or are constantly bombarded with intrusive ads, they won’t stick around, and Google takes notice.

This is where page experience optimization comes in.

This approach is often overlooked—yet a crucial answer to unsatisfactory SEO results. Creating a user-friendly experience can improve your ranking in search results and keep visitors engaged and coming back for more.  

But before delving into the strategies that will improve your site’s experience, we need to take a step back and explain what Google means by “Page Experience.”
 

Understanding Page Experience

Google introduced the page experience update in 2020. It fundamentally reshaped how websites are ranked in search results by emphasizing user experience as a key ranking factor. 

 

For site owners, this update has shown the importance of improving the page experience and ensuring a seamless browsing experience for users. As a result, websites that prioritize user experience are more likely to see improved search engine rankings and user engagement. 

But what signals does Google consider when it comes to page experience?

The various page experience signals include:

• Core Web Vitals
• HTTPS Security
• Mobile-friendliness
• Intrusive Interstitials     

 

Google Page Experience Factors Explained

Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals are a set of three metrics that assess a web page's loading performance for users, including speed (LCP), responsiveness (INP), and visual stability (CLS).

1. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

LCP, or Largest Contentful Paint, analyzes how long it takes for the largest visible content element within the viewport to load. It evaluates the time it takes for viewers to see the largest video, image, or block-level text on a page.

LCP scores fall into three categories: Good (0-2.5 seconds), Needs Improvement (2.5-4 seconds), and Poor (over 4 seconds).
 

2. Interaction to Next Paint (INP)     

INP evaluates a webpage's responsiveness by measuring the latency of all qualifying interactions—such as mouse clicks, touchscreen taps, and key presses—during a user's visit. The final INP score reflects the longest interaction recorded. 

Like other Core Web Vitals, INP scores fall into three categories: Good (0-200ms), Needs Improvement (200-500ms), and Poor (over 500ms).
 

3. Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

CLS or Cumulative Layout Shift measures a webpage's visual stability. It analyzes how much individual content on the page suddenly shifts during its lifespan, including while the page loads.

CLS scores fall into three categories: Good (0-0.1), Needs Improvement (0.1-0.25), and Poor (over 0.25).

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HTTPS Security

HTTPS is a security protocol that encrypts data transferred between a user’s browser and a website. It helps protect sensitive information like passwords and personal data. 

Google considers HTTPS a page experience signal because it helps ensure that a user’s interactions with a site are secure and private. 

Websites with HTTPS are marked by a padlock icon in the browser's address bar, signaling that the connection is secure. 

Mobile-friendliness

With the majority of web traffic coming from mobile devices, mobile-friendliness is a crucial page experience signal. 

This factor assesses how well a webpage displays and functions on mobile devices, focusing on elements like responsive design, readability without zooming, and proper spacing of clickable elements. 

A mobile-friendly website ensures that content is easy to access and navigate regardless of screen size, providing a seamless experience across all devices.
 

Intrusive Interstitials

Intrusive interstitials are pop-ups or overlays that block a significant portion of content on a webpage. 

While interstitials can serve legitimate purposes, such as displaying cookie consent or age verification, those that disrupt navigation or hinder access to information can lead to poor user experience and lower rankings in search results.

Google evaluates the presence of such elements to ensure that content remains accessible without unnecessary obstacles. 
 

Common Misconceptions on Page Experience

Google has been quite secretive about how its algorithm ranks websites on the search engine results page (SERP). This secrecy has contributed to several SEO myths.

Stick around as I clear these page experience misconceptions.

1. Page Experience Improvements Are Only for New Sites

Even if your site has been around for years, it's never too late to optimize the page experience. Older sites often accumulate technical debt and outdated designs that hurt the user experience. Refreshing your site with modern page experience best practices can give you a major competitive advantage.
 

2. Visual Appeal Is Synonymous with Good Page Experience 

Visual appeal is only a subset of a good page experience. It covers the aesthetic part of a website, providing visitors with a great first impression of your website.

A good page experience is a much broader concept. It takes a holistic approach that covers various factors, including aesthetics, accessibility, usability, security, interactivity, and content quality.

However, the visual design of a website can influence its performance because a good website is well-organized and uses efficient code. This means that the website's resources are loaded quickly, and the user doesn't have to wait long for the page to load.

Additionally, a well-designed website is often more intuitive to use. This means users can easily navigate the pages to find the information they want.
 

3. Page Experience Improvements Are One-Time Efforts

Finally, some believe that page experience improvement is a once-and-done strategy. This misconception can harm your website, as you may not see results.

User expectations constantly change, so what was considered a good page experience yesterday may not be sufficient today. Hence, improving the page experience is an ongoing process.

That’s why passing your Core Web Vitals assessment is so important. 

Google recommends monitoring Core Web Vitals over a 28-day period to get a holistic picture of a website's performance. 

This is because website performance can fluctuate due to various factors, such as network conditions, server load, and user device capabilities. By monitoring Core Web Vitals over an extended period, it's possible to identify trends and identify areas for improvement. 
     

6 Ways to Improve Your Page Experience and Rank Higher

1. Optimize Core Web Vitals 

A report shows that even a simple 0.1s variation in page-load speed can impact each stage of the user journey and eventually boost conversion rates by 8.4%.

Therefore, boosting your LCP, INP, and CLS score will have a massive impact on your performance, engagement, and bottom line.

Here are a few tips on how to optimize your Core Web Vitals:

Improve Loading Performance (LCP):

• Optimize Images: Large, unoptimized images are a major cause of slow loading times. Use next-gen formats like WebP and compress images without losing quality.
• Use Content Delivery Networks: A content delivery network (CDN) is a valuable tool for optimizing site speed. It distributes content on your webpage across different servers worldwide, ensuring global reach, faster load times, and reduced latency.
• Minify HTML, CSS, and JavaScript Codes: Unnecessary or long code can impact your website's speed. You can avoid this by using performance optimization services like NitroPack to minify codes and optimize speed.

Enhance Responsiveness (INP):

• Minimize Main Thread Work: Reduce JavaScript execution time by optimizing code, splitting large tasks into smaller chunks, and deferring non-essential scripts. This helps ensure the main thread is available to respond quickly to user interactions.
   
• Optimize Input Handling: Streamline event listeners and handlers by reducing the complexity of tasks triggered by user interactions. Debounce or throttle input events like scrolling, resizing, or typing to prevent unnecessary processing and ensure faster responses.
   
• Leverage Idle Time: Use the browser's idle time to precompute or preload resources that might be needed for upcoming interactions. This approach can help reduce the delay between user interactions and the subsequent rendering or updates on the page.

Improve Visual Stability (CLS):

• Set Size Attributes for Media: Specify width and height for images and videos. This reserves space during loading and prevents content from shifting, thereby improving CLS.
• Avoid Inserting Content Above Existing Content: Ads or banners that load late can push content down and frustrate users. Ensure that dynamic content loads in a predictable manner.
• Use Web Fonts Carefully: Flash of unstyled text (FOUT) or invisible text (FOIT) can disrupt visual stability. Preload key fonts and use fallback fonts to minimize layout shifts.
   

2. Enhance Mobile Responsiveness

Typically, a website’s appearance and functionality differ depending on the device on which it’s accessed. Certain features may appear differently on a mobile device and a desktop.

However, following the recommendations below, you can achieve a great overall mobile experience:

• Implement fluid images, flexible grids, and media queries so your website can fit different screen sizes and orientations.
• Incorporate touch-friendly elements so users can interact with your site on mobile devices. 
• Use the regular mobile-based navigation, ensure appropriate spacing, and optimize the touch target for seamless taps.
• Use readable fonts and spacing so that users can easily read content on your website regardless of their screen size. 
• Improve legibility by using a high contrast between text and background.
• Preview your website on devices of different sizes before making it live or updating it.
   

3. Improve Website Security

One of the first steps for improving your website's security is implementing HTTPS by getting an SSL certificate. HTTPS is the acronym for hypertext transfer protocol secure and SSL for Secure Sockets Layer.

The SSL encryption ensures that data exchanged between users and your website is safe and private. Many visitors, especially tech-savvy ones, get comfortable seeing your website's reassuring padlock icon or a two-factor authentication option.

Updating your software and plugins is another strategy for improving your website security. By keeping everything up-to-date, you can quickly identify and close security gaps that hackers can exploit.
 

4. Optimize Content for Readability, User Intent, and Engagement

By making your content easy to read, you can retain visitors by increasing dwell time and eventually rank higher on SERPs.

To ensure your website content is easily digestible, you can use advanced generative AI chatbots to help develop a clear and structured format, making it more engaging for the readers. You need to understand what an AI chatbot is and how it can help with quick responses.

Large blocks of unending texts are annoying for users. Instead, make sure your webpage is skimmable:

• Use bullet points or numbered lists to outline key points or steps
• Keep your paragraphs short, ideally 1-3 sentences
• Keep your sentences within 20 characters
• Use legible font styles and sizes
• Bolden or italicize crucial points

Lastly, to make your content and pages more engaging, you can add elements like call-to-actions, asking questions, quizzes, or polls. With these appropriate engagement strategies, you can generate sales leads for your website.
 

5. Enhance Site Navigation and Structure

Your website's navigation and structure must be relatable and clear to retain visitors. Here's how to keep your website easy to use and intuitive:

• Create a clear and consistent menu that helps users easily find what they’re looking for.
• Use simple, descriptive labels for your menu items and organize them logically.
• Use descriptive anchor text for internal links to give users and search engines context about the linked page.
• Create a logical, hierarchical arrangement of your pages, starting with broad categories that narrow down into specific topics.
• Use sitemaps to help search engines index your website content more effectively.
   

6. Minimize Intrusive Interstitials

Nobody likes interstitials or ads popping up while reading content on a webpage. In fact, a survey shows that 60% of users would leave a site because of intrusive interstitials. Hence, you must reduce intrusive interstitials to provide a positive user experience and improve SEO rankings.

If you must use intrusive interstitials, make it strategic and minimal. Also, ensure they offer value, not just promotional ads that detract your audience from the main content.

Follow these best practices for using interstitials and popups responsibly:

• Ensure that popups are relevant to the users' needs and interests.
• Limit the size of popups to cover only a small portion of the screen.
• Instead of displaying a popup as soon as a page loads, set a trigger action like scrolling depth or clicking a link.
• Include a visible “X” button or "Close" option for users to close popups if they're not interested.

FAQ

How do I measure Core Web Vitals?

You can measure Core Web Vitals using tools like Google Search Console, PageSpeed Insights, and Web Vitals Extension.

What are some tools to continuously monitor web performance?

Some tools to continuously monitor web performance include Google Lighthouse, PageSpeed Insights, WebPageTest, and browser-based solutions like Chrome DevTools. Additionally, services like New Relic, Datadog, and Dynatrace provide ongoing monitoring and alerts for web performance metrics.

How can I leverage server-side improvements for a better page experience?

Optimize server response times, enabling server-side rendering (SSR) for faster initial load and implementing efficient caching strategies like Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) to reduce latency. Additionally, compressing and optimizing assets on the server can significantly enhance the overall page experience.

What is the role of a CDN in page experience?

A CDN (Content Delivery Network) improves page experience by distributing content across multiple servers worldwide, reducing latency by serving assets from a location closer to the user. This results in faster load times, reduced server load, and improved reliability, especially during high-traffic periods.