In May 2021, Google rolled out a new algorithm update called Google Core Web Vitals Update, which will have a big impact on every website in the world. Here’s what you need to know about it and how to adapt to the recent update
What is Google’s Core Web Vitals Update?
Google’s latest major Google Core Web Vitals Update gives importance to something they call the Page Experience. , included in the over 200 ranking factors of Google. Google is now telling webmasters to push these factors to the forefront.
How to Fit Your Website to these Updates
Start with the Easy Stuff
Ensure your website is aligned with the Google Core Web Vitals Update by going to your website and see what improvements you can make to improve the user experience. Start simple. Is your font readable and big enough to read? Do your tags make sense? Are any of the design elements out of place? Are there too many pop-ups that might scare away users? Is the content on the blog any good? These problems are something you can efficiently address on your website.
Improve your website page speed
Page speed is another important consideration to make when designing for the most recent update. Google has reported an increase of 70% in users engaging with Lighthouse and Page Speed Insights to prepare their sites for Page Experience. Given the Core Web Vitals that were introduced to measure the speed, responsiveness, and visual stability a website is able to deliver, it’s clear that speed is important. Ideally, a site’s Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) should be 2.5 seconds or faster. If your is any higher than this, it’s time to optimize for speed!
If you don’t know how to optimise your website speed, you can ask your web designer to help you.
Look at the Technical Side
From fixing minor problems, you can move on to more complicated things. Here are some technical changes to be made (if you haven’t already done them)
- Switch to Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure. If your website is still in HTTP, it is best to buy an SSL certificate for HTTPS. More users feel safer opening HTTPS websites—something Google has taken note of.
- Add meta descriptions. This is the first thing people see when they find your website on Google. Keep it short, smart, and straightforward.
- Make the website mobile-friendly. More than 32 million mobile connections were made in Australia in January 2021. The more mobile ready your site is, the higher your ranking might get on both mobile and desktop.
Cater to Users, Not Google
SEO specialists often focus on link building since this factor can get a website’s authority up, resulting in better chances of ranking. Keywords go wherever you can put them on every page of the website. This used to be the norm for SEO up until this update.
Google is now telling websites that more links do not equal higher rankings. Instead, it will be rewarding websites that fit into what people are looking for on the web—a better user experience.
It is important to remember that websites were made for humans, not for Google’s indexing protocols. So if your SEO is directed towards giving people what they want and need to find, the ranks will follow.
Conclusion
Staying up-to-date with Google’s updates is something that every webmaster has been doing since the beginning of the digital age. Google won’t stop making updates for the sake of users, so it is best to be flexible with SEO management.
Do you need professional insights and guidance to help you with these updates? Get the help of SKCreative, a freelance digital marketing consultant in Melbourne. I help small businesses and startups reach their goals online through smart digital marketing and website design.
