Google’s giving us advance notice about an upcoming algorithm change that will focus on “page experience.” I want to make sure that dentists know:
- what “page experience” means and how it differs from UX
- what “page experience metrics” are
- how to check their websites’ page experience
- how to improve a website’s page experience
Why should you care?
Sites that have a great page experience will rank higher and show up more often in search results, and thus get more traffic than competing pages. More traffic, if it’s the right traffic, will translate to more new patients for your dental practice.
What does page experience mean?
Here’s Google’s definition: “Page experience is a set of signals that measure how users perceive the experience of interacting with a web page beyond its pure information value. It includes Core Web Vitals, which is a set of metrics that measure real-world user experience for loading performance, interactivity, and visual stability of the page.”
In layman’s terms, page experience is what a user experiences on a specific web page (URL). This includes but is not limited to:
- interactivity (buttons work correctly across all browsers and mobile devices)
- page speed (load time of all page elements)
- page error (404)
- your page experience compared to your competitors’ (competitive analysis)
- safe browsing (https)
- mobile-friendliness
- broken links
- missing/broken images or videos
How is user experience (UX) different from page experience?
Page experience is defined above, but you may be more familiar with the term user experience, or UX. Dictionary.com defines UX as: “the overall experience of a person using a product such as a website or computer application, especially in terms of how easy or pleasing it is to use.”
In comparing these two terms, you can see that page experience has to do with a user’s interaction on a specific page (URL). Regarding websites, UX has more to do with the ease of use, overall.
So, page experience is one specific element of UX.
What are page experience metrics?
Google’s developer site says that there’s no need to rush when implementing page experience improvements. The company has created a page educate an inform technicians about page experience metrics and how to use them. We will have six months’ notice before the page experience algorithm change rolls out.
How can I check my website’s page experience?
I strongly suggest you work with a website technician who understands SEO and Google Developer Tools, so he or she can determine how your site should be altered and properly implement those changes. With most SEO, “doing it right” is subjective. That’s not the case with page experience.
Google offers various tools for checking page experience and UX:
- Look at your site on various phones. Make changes to your website to improve mobile user experience.
- Page Speed Insights will tell you if your site loads slowly. Decreasing load time will help with website optimization, which directly affects your page rankings and as a result, your web traffic.
- Check out Core Web Vitals, a way to check three important aspects of user experience on a webpage.
- Google also offers the Chrome UX (User Experience) Report, which gets pretty technical. You may need a web technician for this one.
- Google Big Query gets very technical. I wouldn’t tackle this without a web technician, even if you consider yourself tech-savvy.
How can I improve my website’s page experience?
- Find a technician who understands Google Developer Tools.
- Have that technician run the above analyses and reports. (There will be a fee for this.)
- With the technician, evaluate the data and create a list of web page changes for your homepage and most popular pages (see traffic on Google Analytics).
- Have the technician submit a bid for implementing the changes on your dental practice’s website.
- Determine the most important factors and start with those changes, working down your list until it is complete. Remember, don’t rush. Google will give us six months’ notice before making the page experience algorithm change.
If you get started now, you’ll be ahead of the curve and should see a positive impact – with a greater impact once the algorithm update occurs. Starting now will also allow you to spread the cost of improvements over the course of six months or longer, which your budget will appreciate.
Are you a dentist who needs help with page experience on your website?
Whether you need a new dental website or updates to your existing site before the Google algorithm update rolls out, we can help. Call Shauna Duty at Identiwrite Creative: 940-395-5115. You can also text to that number or email [email protected].
