In an effort to provide content that is always relevant to web users, Google is continually improving its algorithm  releasing minor and major updates. For 2023, the Mountain View firm’s search engine plans to deploy a new update on user experience (UX). Dubbed Google Page Experience, this major update is set to launch next May and could bring significant changes to how we optimize our website for Google Search.

Definition of user Experience (UX)

The user experience (in English User experience or UX) can be defined as the overall impression of an Internet user regarding the navigation on your website. This feeling can be negative or positive, depending on the structure, content and different elements present on each page.

To optimize the user experience, you must therefore design your website in such a way that users can easily consult its content and intuitively perform various actions (place an order, etc.).

On Google, the user experience is one of the main pillars of natural referencing along with technique, content and net linking. To occupy an advantageous positioning on the results pages of this search engine, you must therefore seriously consider the UX of your website.

For your information, UI (User Interface) and UX (User experience) should not be confused. The UI designates the graphic elements allowing Internet users to interact with your website: menu, Call-to-Action, etc.

UX or user experience, on the other hand, is a set of practices and techniques that allow users to interact more easily with your website.

Google Page Experience: Algorithm Deployed From May 2023

Presented last May, the Google Page Experience update should be deployed in May 2023, according to an announcement from the Mountain View firm’s search engine. The arrival of this major update perfectly illustrates Google’s desire to develop its algorithm in order to continuously improve the quality of its results.

For this new update, Google wants to integrate Core Web Vitals (essential web signals) to assess the quality of experience provided a web page.

Core Web Vitals are a set of criteria that allow the Google Search algorithm to better determine the UX of a page:

• LCP (web page loading time)
• The FID (the interactivity of a web page)
• CLS (visual stability of the interface of a web page)

They are therefore added to Google’s ranking criteria for user experience:

• Responsive design, security (no malware)
• Securing the connection (https)
• The accessibility of the content of a web page (absence of intrusive interstitials).

Thanks to the consideration of essential web signals its algorithm, Google Search will therefore favor websites and pages offering an excellent user experience.

On the other hand, the search engine will downgrade slow pages and websites, not optimized for mobile terminals and/or with an interface that is not very ergonomic.

For information, Google plans to make other changes to its ranking algorithm. From May 2023, using Google AMP will no longer be a prerequisite for accessing the Top Stories carousel.

Additionally, any content that meets Google News requirements can access the Top Stories carousel.

To further improve the quality of the results offered to Internet users, the search engine also announced that the chances of access to Top Stories should be higher for sites and web pages offering an excellent user experience.

In order to reward web pages offering a quality user experience, Google plans to create a visual indicator appearing on the SERPs, like the small flash of the Accelerated Mobile Pages.

To benefit from this indicator and boost both its SEO for your company and its traffic, a page must meet all of Google’s criteria and requirements in terms of UX.

3 Steps to Optimize your Site’s UX

As I mentioned earlier, UX is one of the main pillars of SEO on Google. To avoid possible downgrading of your pages on the SERPs of the search engine, I advise you to work on the user experience of your website before deploying the Google Page Experience update.

For your site to offer an optimal UX, it must have a number of qualities according to Peter Merville, an information architecture specialist:

• Useful: offering content that meets user expectations
• Usable: easy to use
• Desirable: with a neat design that encourages users to continue browsing
• Findable: allowing users to quickly and easily find what they are looking for
• Accessible: offering various elements that facilitate navigation for people with disabilities
• Credible: offering reliable information
• Valuable: offering added value to users

In order to offer all its qualities to your website and improve your SEO, I suggest that you optimize the user experience performing 3 steps:

• Analysis of user behavior
• Implementation of objectives and improvement work
• Test A/B

Analysis of user Behavior

User behavior analysis is an essential step in optimizing the UX and improving the SEO of your website on Google. Indeed, it is impossible for you to fully satisfy your visitors, without knowing what they expect from each page of your site.

By learning about the behavior of your audience, you can determine the brakes that prevent them from continuing their navigation, but also the points that can be improved.

Behavioral analysis begins with that of the performance of the different elements present on each page of your website: Call-to-Action, menu, etc. To obtain concrete and reliable data, I recommend that you use a dedicated tool.

Many programs provide you with metrics such as item click rate, dwell time, revenue per click.

The click rate tells you the percentage of users who clicked on an element of a page on your website. Hesitation time, on the other hand, highlights the average time between the last hover of an element and its selection the visitor.

Regarding the income per click, it tells you about the elements that have contributed the most to the transformation of your visitors into customers.

Once you’ve analyzed user behavior, look at user journeys and compare your website’s performance to that of your competitors.

Journeys let you know when users leave your website and how many visitors have created a shopping cart.

In addition, comparisons are excellent solutions to determine the elements that contribute to the improvement of the user experience provided your website and those that should be improved.

The Implementation Of Objectives And Improvement Works

After gathering all the necessary information during the behavioral analysis, you must define your objectives and carry out the improvement work to improve the experience offered to your visitors and the SEO content writing services of your website.

Depending on your needs, you can choose to improve your funnel for conversion, quoting, etc.

With your goals in place, begin improvement work, focusing on simple optimizations:

• Remove 404 errors
• Re-enabling non-functional elements (CTAs, menu items, etc.)
• Improvement of the form, etc.

Next, look at the optimizations that help achieve your goals:

• Removal of blocking points on each page and the form
• Optimization of the landing page, etc.

A/B Testing

To identify the design and elements that fully contribute to improving the experience provided your website as well as increasing your conversion rate, I recommend that you create different versions of each page and proceed to A/B testing.

A/B testing allows you to identify which version of a page contributes the most to achieving your goals.

Quid du SXO (Search experience Optimization)?

The 3 steps of user experience optimization that I proposed to you previously allow you to improve the UX of your website and your conversion rate. However, be aware that they do not fully participate in SEO optimization, especially on Google.

Admittedly, the optimization work carried out through these different stages improves the design, interactivity and usability of each page of your site, however, they do not allow you to meet all the requirements of the update. Google Page Experience update.

To improve your positioning on search engine results pages, you need to look into the SXO.

As you will have understood, SXO is a mix between SEO and UX. It therefore consists of improving the experience offered to users to improve your SEO on search engines, mainly Google.

Given the new ranking criteria that will be taken into account the search giant from May 2023, there is no doubt that the SXO will be at the heart of any SEO strategy.

To improve the SEO of your website, you must now focus on its design, its interactivity and its usability, but also on its loading time, its security and the accessibility of its content (absence of intrusive advertisements).

For CMS users, especially , the choice of theme can influence the UX. In addition to design, interactivity and usability, the theme plays a major role in the loading speed of the pages of a website. Avoid page builders and other content that can weigh down your pages.

By choosing a theme offering a light code and opting for a powerful hosting structure, you can significantly reduce the display time of each page of your site. I can only recommend my SEO Mag theme optimized for SEO, UX and performance.

Conclusion

Following Google’s announcement of the rollout of the Google Page Experience update, UX is expected to take a more prominent place in SEO, starting in May 2023. To maintain or improve your positioning on the pages of results of this search engine, I therefore strongly recommend that you work on the user experience of your website as quickly as possible, focusing, among other things, on the Core Web Vitals (essential web signals):

• Loading time
• Interactivity
• Visual stability