How to Prepare Your Site for Google’s Page Experience Update in 2024

Intro

Google’s page experience update aims to improve the overall user experience on websites, and adherence (or lack thereof) will impact how your website ranks in Google’s search results.

As a website owner or developer, it’s crucial to understand this update and take the necessary steps to ensure your site is prepared.

What is Google’s Page Experience Update?

Initially announced in 2021 (but has continued to receive updates over the years), focusing on specific ranking factors. Let’s dive into each one in more detail.

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

CLS is one of Google’s three core web vitals and measures how stable content is as it loads. A high score means the content is “shifting” as users are trying to interact with it, leading to a poor user experience.

In their announcement, Google said:

“Having page elements shift while a user is trying to interact with it is a bad user experience.”

What’s your goal? Achieving a CLS of less than 0.1 for at least 75% of your page visits.

(Image source)

The other core web vitals are:

1. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) measures the load time of the largest content element on a page. An ideal LCP measurement is 2.5 seconds or faster.
2. First Input Delay (FID) measures the time it takes for a user to interact with your page (read: tap on a button or click on a link) to when the browser responds to that interaction‌. A good FID is 100 milliseconds or less.

1Password.com, a password management tool, is an excellent example of a website that has understood and implemented relevant changes in response to the page experience update, especially with loading times and responsiveness.

(Image source)

The website loads fast and responds quickly to user interactions, as it uses modern web technologies and optimizes its images, scripts, and stylesheets. It also maintains high visual stability, avoiding layout shifts and ensuring the content doesn’t jump around during loading or scrolling.

Safe browsing

In 2021, one in every two American internet users had their accounts breached.

Cybercrime, malware, and spyware are real problems. Although much of cyber-security rests on users having firewalls in place, Google will reward websites that offer a secure online shopping experience.

Intrusive interstitials

Invasive pop-ups when browsing a website are annoying. Google’s update will specifically mark down pop-ups that block the main content.

Note: This factor doesn’t impact essential pop-ups like asking for cookie consent.

Duplicate content

The rel=“canonical” tag is a way to tell Google which page you want to index out of several pages that have duplicate or similar content.

This tag will become more influential and crucial in 2024. Duplicate content will continue to hurt your ranking in search results.

URL structure

URLs must be simple enough for Google to read and insightful enough to communicate the page’s content.

(Image source)

Unclear URLs, such as those ending with random numbers, will be marked down.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) influence

Google’s search engine will continue to use AI and ML to understand the intent behind a search (rather than merely using keywords to match websites).

(Image source)

In other words, it could change keyword research and search engine results pages (SERPs) as we know it (more on that in a bit).

Mobile-first indexing

Over half of all website traffic (and growing) comes from mobile devices. There’s no wonder why Google will continue to prioritize mobile usability.

It’ll even go as far as to penalize websites that don’t provide a suitable mobile experience. For instance, if you experience ‌AMP issues, your organic traffic can drop off entirely.

​​

(Image source)

7 Ways to Prepare Your Website for Google’s Page Experience Update

The update isn’t radically changing the face of search engine optimization (SEO), nor are marketers learning anything completely new.

Any experienced SEO specialist is already aware of the building blocks that make for an optimized website. However, the update allows them to make their efforts more targeted and intentional.

Here are the seven focus areas to help you land those coveted top spots in the SERPs.

Visual stability

A website’s CLS score of zero means your content is stable. You can achieve this score through several practical steps:

1. Specify image and video dimensions so the browser knows exactly how much space to allocate for each asset as the website loads. The same applies to ad elements and embeds (such as embedded social media feeds). It’ll reduce the likelihood of unexpected layout shifts that make a page unusable.
2. Add interactive content like newsletter sign-up forms underneath existing content because if it’s added above the content, it pushes it down the existing content, causing a layout shift.
3. Use the link rel=“preload” tag to tell the browser about the most important parts of a page that need to load first, such as fonts and multimedia.
4. Use CSS for animations rather than properties that affect layout.

Applying these consistently across your web pages will keep your CLS score low and, more importantly, give your users a pleasant website experience.

Make pop-ups user-friendly and relevant

Websites don’t need to stop using pop-ups — just use them with some best-practice principles in mind. Make sure pop-ups don’t block the main content at the most elementary level, as Google explicitly penalizes that.

Additional considerations include:

• Reconsidering when they pop up. It might not be best to make them appear as soon as a visitor lands on the page (except for the cookie consent). Time them to appear as they’re about to exit a page or once they reach halfway down.
• Making them easy to dismiss to avoid disruption for the user (including on mobile devices).
• Make the contents of the pop-up clear by avoiding misleading or vague terminology.
• Make sure they render well on different screen sizes.

Need inspiration? Take a look at how House of Joppa makes the pop-up easy to close or take the desired action (signing up to its email list in exchange for 10% off your order).

(Image source)

The above is a great example of a friendly pop-up. The placement, language, and clarity are highly optimized for the best results.

Pop-ups aren’t a form of dark arts. In fact, the average pop-up conversion rate is over 11%, so they still have value if done right.

Developing a safe browsing experience

A good website has style and substance. Much of the substance comes from introducing a safe browsing experience for the user.

• Implement HTTPS to encrypt data between the user’s browser and your server.
• Regularly perform malware scans on your website and strengthen your cyber security when using public networks.
• E-commerce websites particularly need to communicate a transparent and secure transaction process and secure payment gateways.
• Review emergency protocols and business continuity measures to minimize damage in the unfortunate case of a security breach.
• Audit for deceptive content and scam promotions, especially when partnering with other organizations.

These are things that people don’t necessarily notice but happen in the background, working like an unsung hero.

Introduce page audit practices

It’s common for a single blog post to be accessible via multiple URLs due to tracking UTM parameters or different navigation paths. Using the rel=“canonical” tag reduces the chances of it being marked as duplicate content.

It’s normal practice for e-commerce websites to have products listed under multiple categories, resulting in different URLs leading to the same product page.

By selecting one of these URLs as the canonical version and using the rel=“canonical” tag on all other versions, you consolidate the search ranking signals to the chosen URL.

(Image source)

This tag can do the same in the following way:

• Pointing content back to its original source when it’s republished on other websites.
• Choosing between mobile and desktop versions of the same page.

There are plenty of other methods for policing duplicate content on a website:

• Use 301 redirects to guide search engines to the preferred page when there are multiple pages with similar content.
• Make the content unique, where possible, even on similar pages.
• Be careful when republishing third-party content.
• Thinking about merging pages or rewriting them to improve content quality.

Implement consistent URL structures sitewide

URL structures need to communicate the content of the page clearly. Here are practical ways to enhance URL structure:

• Be descriptive but concise. Instead of using a URL like www.example.com/product12345, use www.example.com/blue-denim-jacket.
• Use hyphens to separate words (as above).
• Use relevant keywords. For example, www.example.com/green-tea-benefits for a page about the benefits of green tea.
• Keep a logical hierarchy, such as www.example.com/products/for-kids/boys, but avoid deep nesting where the forward slashes go on and on.
• Once you’ve chosen a URL structure, keep it consistent across the entire website. It makes it easier for Google to crawl.
• Use lowercase letters.

Write with user intent in mind

With AI and ML focusing on getting into the shoes of a user to understand why they search for things the way they do, websites will equally need to reflect user intent in their copy.

Keyword stuffing was never an acceptable practice. Even the most morally conscious writers will need to review content and check whether it caters to its audience's specific needs and queries. The goal? Avoid copy that simply follows traditional SEO best practices.

Business owners and their marketing teams should begin by creating relevant content and making it as comprehensive and detailed as possible.

Try to address all aspects of a topic to cover a range of user-related queries, which can be found using any keyword research tool.

(Image source)

However, don’t only focus on writing blocks of texts separated into paragraphs. Use lists, dropdowns, tables, and FAQs to present information creatively and logically.

Your writing should mirror how people speak and ask questions. AI content can speed this process up, but good content still needs specialist oversight.

Prioritize the mobile website

In 2018, a study from Canonicalized found that of the top one million most popular websites, almost a quarter weren’t optimized for mobile.

It’s astonishing that in 2018 so many businesses still lag behind in mobile-friendliness when most content management systems offer mobile-friendly website templates by default.

In other words, that gives the leanest of businesses no excuses not to have a mobile-friendly design.

Any website worth having must have a responsive design, that is, the ability to rejig itself depending on screen size and device. Specific things to bear in mind include:

• Make sure any pop-ups are also responsive and adaptable to the screen size.
• Make sure any updates made to the website reflect on the mobile version.
• Appropriately sized buttons (one shouldn’t have to zoom in to read the text).
• Easy-to-use navigation menus.

And if you’re unsure if your site is mobile-friendly, use Google’s mobile-friendly test tool to evaluate your website.

Wordvice, a leader in English editing and proofreading services, is a great example of a website that prioritizes its mobile design.

(Image source)

Wordvice ensures its content displays flawlessly on mobile devices, offering users a clean and intuitive navigation experience.

Wrapping up

As things inevitably quiet down over Christmas, it’s a great opportunity to start implementing changes to avoid poor page experiences for users.

Check Google Search Console to understand how a site performs in Google search results, and use our checklist to ensure you’re all set for 2024.

For more help, check out our SEO strategy guides. Here’s to your online success in 2024!