Page experience should be given a major thrust as it is integral in providing a seamless user experience. Thus, users are engaged more deeply and less likely to leave a website with a good page experience. To provide a holistic picture of page experience, core web vitals are incorporated with other existing page experience signals such as mobile-friendliness, intrusive interstitial guidelines and HTTPS security to further align with evolving user expectations. In this blog, we will discuss the basics of core web vitals and also how non-core web vitals impact SEO. Let’s dive in!
Core Web Vitals are a set of user-centred measures that help website owners evaluate key aspects of the user experience on the web. They measure elements of web usability related to speed, visual stability and responsiveness as the page loads.
According to Google page experience ranking factors are categorized into core web vitals and non-core web vitals. It recommends that webmasters and publishers should check the core web vitals and also must check whether their website meets all the non-core web vitals page experience factors to deliver a superior experience for their users.
Below are the top three non-core web vitals among the essential factors that provide users with an optimal user experience and also help in improving a site’s search traffic.
- Mobile-friendliness
Mobile-friendliness is one of the essential factors to consider because in recent times most people are using mobile devices to surf the internet. Thus, developing a modern, responsive website design ensures that the site performs well on all devices.
Google suggests some tips to ensure a site is more compatible with mobile devices:
- Make sure to set a minimum height and width for tappable elements like buttons, menu dropdowns, etc.
- Ensure that the content ascends to the right size when users visit the website.
- Optimised the site to create a smoother navigation experience for users.
Besides the Google recommendations, webmasters can also work on other parts of mobile-friendliness like removing outdated plugins such as Flash, checking if URLs meet the criteria using mobile-friendliness test tools, etc.
Along with the Google search console, while checking the entire website, it is best to use a mobile-friendly checker tool to manage how their content is displayed on the SERPs.
- HTTPS security
A website that uses HTTPS secure protocol for sending and receiving information on the internet will have an additional authentication. Websites that collect sensitive data should always use HTTPS. HTTPS improves user’s overall security and privacy and thus it is a positive ranking factor for websites.
HTTPS security check is a direct and easy check. It checks whether a site uses HTTPS or not and a website that uses it will pass the check. In addition, it is essential to confirm thal rel=’canonical’ is set to the HTTPS version of the domain and also ensure that all non-HTTPS URLs are redirected to the HTTPS versions.
- Absence of intrusive interstitials
This factor can also be referred to as an absence of annoying pop-ups. There is no tool to check but we can quickly assess if the website passes this check by examining whether the website has automated pop-ups or not. If the site has pop-ups then it has intrusive interstitials.
Google recommends that the website owners should avoid covering the overall content with ads or pop-ups irrelevant to the page. Also, the ads on the website should not interrupt the user from interacting and they need not dismiss an interstitial before they can interact with the webpage.
However, note that the below requirements are recognized as fine by Google and don’t apply to interstitials used for:
- Cookies
- Legal reasons like age verification
- User logins
- Subscription paywalls
Conclusion
Page experience is an important ranking factor for SEO. To reap the benefits of this ranking signal, all you need to do is simply make the web experience better for users. Google believes that the above-mentioned factors are fundamental to provide users with a superior user experience and to improve your SEO rankings.
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Durga
About The Author…
Durga has a master’s degree in engineering. Technological advances in digital space interest her a lot. Digital marketing is her forte and she passionately follows latest trends in the digital marketing space. She has written many trending articles on various social media platforms. Her areas of interest include SEO Optimization, structured data, SMM, Keywords research and analysis etc. She is focused, resourceful and dedicated.