{"id":119512,"date":"2021-04-20T17:16:06","date_gmt":"2021-04-20T09:16:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seo-hacker.com\/?p=19512"},"modified":"2022-05-11T14:47:14","modified_gmt":"2022-05-11T06:47:14","slug":"optimizing-page-experience-signals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seo-hacker.com\/optimizing-page-experience-signals\/","title":{"rendered":"Optimizing Page Experience Signals"},"content":{"rendered":"

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May 2021 is coming and in just a few weeks, Google will release the much-awaited Page Experience which includes one of the hottest topics in SEO during the past year; the Core Web Vitals. With so much talk going on around the Core Web Vitals, people often forget that the 3 metrics are just a part of the Page Experience update.<\/span><\/p>\n

As Google stated in their blog post back in May 2020, the signals derived from the Core Web Vitals are being combined with the existing signals for page experience which are; mobile-friendliness, safe-browsing, HTTPS-security, and intrusive interstitials guidelines.<\/span><\/p>\n

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So if you\u2019re thinking you\u2019re done with your website and you\u2019re already well-prepared for the coming update, you might want to check these other signals out. Yes, they are existing signals but that\u2019s also the reason why most overlook them. Let\u2019s take a step back and review the other signals for Page Experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mobile-friendliness<\/span><\/h2>\n

If making your website mobile-friendly is not on the top of your priority list, then you better put it now. There are already many reasons why you should make your website mobile-friendly and the page experience update is just one of them.<\/span><\/p>\n

The number of searches in mobile has grown rapidly throughout the years. In fact, in 2019 <\/span>63% of organic search traffic in the US came from mobile<\/span><\/a>. Google has always believed that mobile is the direction for search and that is why they want to provide mobile users the same experience on mobile as with desktop users or even better.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Making your website mobile-friendly is making sure that the content and functionalities found on the desktop version are organized well for mobile screens. If you have web development skills, then it might be easier for you to make specific adjustments but many use templates for their websites. Make sure that you select mobile-responsive templates that will automatically adjust to the device of the user. If you want more technical guidelines for mobile implementation, I highly recommend checking <\/span>Google\u2019s guide on mobile<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

If you want to check if the pages of your website are mobile-friendly, you can use <\/span>Google\u2019s Mobile-Friendly Test<\/span><\/a> to analyze it. You can either use the exact URL you want to analyze or copy and paste the HTML code of the webpage. The Mobile-Friendly Test will tell you if your website is mobile-friendly from Google\u2019s perspective and also provide you feedback on what to improve.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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You could also identify Mobile-Friendliness errors on your website through your Google Search Console account. Under \u2018Enhancements\u2019 and click on Mobile Usability.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Safe browsing<\/span><\/h2>\n

Optimizing your website for Safe Browsing means making sure that your website does not have any <\/span>malicious content<\/span><\/a> or <\/span>social engineering<\/span><\/a>. These can negatively affect user experience on a website and Google\u2019s priority is to protect users from being misled or putting them at risk.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Malicious content includes malware and unwanted software. These are software that is specifically designed to harm devices and users. Some examples would be downloading and installing software and files containing viruses on your Mac<\/a>\/PC or collecting data without the users\u2019 consent.<\/span><\/p>\n

Social engineering is a tactic used to deceive and trick users. Primary examples would be phishing, deceptive content, and insufficiently labeled third-party services.<\/span><\/p>\n

Security is a top priority by Google. If your website is putting users at risk, Google may start removing your website from the search results and displaying warning messages to users who will enter your website.<\/span><\/p>\n

If Google detects one of these on your website, you will receive a security warning on Google Search Console under Security and Manual Actions. It will inform you of the unsafe content found on your website and the pages that are affected.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

If this was not done by you then it is most likely done by hackers who were able to get access to your website by looking for vulnerabilities. Google will give you time to clean your website or the affected pages. Once you\u2019re done, you can then ask for a review. If your rankings were affected, it might take a few days or weeks to regain them.<\/span><\/p>\n

I highly recommend investing in website security tools to clean and avoid these incidents. I\u2019ve seen a lot of websites that were victims of these attacks unknowingly and their websites were dropped from Google Search.<\/span><\/p>\n

HTTPS<\/span><\/h2>\n

Way back in 2014, Google announced that <\/span>HTTPS is considered as a ranking signal<\/span><\/a>. Similar to Safe Browsing, this is because Google highly values the security of users and this is one of the easiest ways to measure it on a website. HTTPS or Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure protects user data from being collected by third-party elements when it is being transferred to a website they are entering.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Applying HTTPS on your website is quite simple but it\u2019s also easy to mess it up. Make sure that you purchase security certificates from a reliable <\/span>Certificate Authority<\/span><\/a> who also provides great technical support.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It is crucial that when you implement HTTPS on your website, you use server-side redirects on all of your web pages and resources like images and pdf files. Even one or a few pages that weren\u2019t properly transitioned to HTTPS can be a vulnerability for hackers to attack.<\/span><\/p>\n

You should also take note that security certificates are not permanent. I\u2019ve seen people who bought a domain and got SSLs for free but forgot to renew them. Keep an eye out on when your SSLs will expire by <\/span>checking it here<\/span><\/a> so you could renew it even before it expires.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

No intrusive interstitials<\/span><\/h2>\n

Basically, intrusive interstitials<\/a> are the pop-up ads<\/a> that we see on websites. They\u2019re common and there is usually no problem with them but they can be quite an annoyance for users sometimes and page experience is all about providing users with a pleasant experience<\/span><\/p>\n

Intrusive interstitials if done right won\u2019t gravely affect user experience but Google will look at it negatively if it interferes with the action the user wants to do on the website like:<\/span><\/p>\n