Along with the 200 ranking factors outlined by Google, its Core Web Vitals update (rolling out mid-June 2021) will start taking user experience (UX) into consideration even more. What Are Google’s Core Web Vitals? Google has developed various user experience signals during the last few years, including Core Web Vitals - a tool for monitoring website speed and operation, providing you with tangible metrics to assess your site's user experience. To comprehensively measure UX performance and capture user-centric outcomes, Google relies on a combination of field data (from real page loads) and lab data (collected in a controlled environment) to track a series of key events on your users’ journey. CWV use these measuring proxies: Largest Contentful Paint – your site’s perceived load speed. Aim for LCP of 2.5 seconds or less for any page. First Input Delay – how quickly content on your site becomes interactive and responsive. A good FID score is less than 100ms. Cumulative Layout Shift - the visual stability of your site and the probability of elements suddenly shifting as users try to interact with them. Aim for a CLS score of 0.1 or lower. What’s New in The Page Experience Update? According to Google, their new algorithm will assess how consumers feel about the experience of engaging with a website. Optimizing for these characteristics makes the web more enjoyable for users across all web browsers and aids in the evolution of sites to meet mobile user expectations. They believe that as people become more engaged and transactions become less frictional, businesses will thrive on the web. In a nutshell, the page experience update rewards user-friendly sites with a higher ranking on Google’s search engine results page (SERP) than non-user-friendly sites, making UX a direct ranking criterion. As well as the Core Web Vitals, Google’s new website experience update will initially take note of the following four user experience signals: Mobile-Friendliness - how well your page performs on mobile devices. Safe-Browsing - malware and other deceptive content on your page might put users’ personal information at risk. HTTPS - using a secure HTTPS connection adds to safe browsing of your page. No Intrusive Interstitials – pop-ups and other advertisements can make it difficult for users to read or navigate your page by obscuring the content. (Login pages and legally required interstitials will not negatively affect your score.) How Do I Know if my Website is On Track? As user experience becomes more and more important, you want a website that everyone loves so much that Google makes sure it ranks highly! The tools listed below will help you to assess how your website is performing and highlight where you need to improve: The Core Web Vitals report (accessed via Google's Search Console) offers an in-depth analysis of your site using real-world usage data to measure the performance of various URLs throughout your site with detailed information about each page. To track performance over time, run a Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) parallel to the Core Web Vitals report. Its summary of the previous month’s worth of performance data is also drawn from real-world data and includes other metrics alongside Core Web Vitals. Insight about the country, type of device, and effectiveness of the user’s connection helps you discover what external factors may be affecting your performance. Building a Better Web, Together Google’s Core Web Vitals updates are designed to help everyone optimize the UX of their web pages. Improved UX across the board makes for happier users, lower bounce rates and hopefully, more leads and sales. It also Photo Editing Services makes the web a more competitive place as companies work to apply the metrics and improve their rankings. The metrics offered by Core Web Vitals are a gift to companies and web developers because they give us a clear indication of what does and doesn’t work on our websites, giving us the opportunity to sharpen and improve our web pages. Google Core Web Vitals Metrics: The Foundation Of The Update At the heart of the latest Google Core Web Vitals update are the new metrics that have been introduced to measure and score your website’s user experience. These metrics include First Contentful Paint, Largest Contentful Paint, First Input Delay and Cumulative Layout Shift. First Contentful Paint First Contentful Paint (FCP) measures the time it takes from when a page first starts loading to the point when any element of the page’s content is rendered on the screen. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) LCP is a measure of how long it takes for the largest element of the page’s content to load on the screen. It is an indication of how long it takes for the page’s main content to load. Google’s standard for UX is for an individual page’s content to load in less than 2.5 seconds. If loading time is more than this, you’re going to receive a low LCP score. First Input Delay (FID) FID is effectively a measure of your pages’ interactivity. It measures the time it takes for a page to execute a particular action or command after the user has entered it. It should take no more than 100 milliseconds from input to execution. Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) Lastly, you should aim to achieve a low CLS score on your web pages. CLS is a measure of a web page’s visual stability. If visual elements shift up and down the page while it is loading, this is an indication of an unfavorable CLS, as this kind of visual instability can have an adverse effect on your UX. An unstable page can cause users to click in the wrong places, cause frustration and lead to high bounce rates.

Want more positive online reviews for your business? The recent webinar hosted by WSI’s Carlos Guzman covered online reputation management and, ICYMI, you can watch the recording here. WSI Digital Marketing Consultant, speaker, and author, Carlos Guzman held CEO positions in technology companies for nearly 20 years before joining WSI in 2004. Why is Online Reputation so Important? More than ever, consumers (both B2C and B2B) are consulting online reviews and ratings before deciding where to spend their hard-earned dollars because they trust online reviews. Not only that, 97% of shoppers who read online reviews from other consumers also read the business responses, which means that not answering or acknowledging the reviews is a bad strategy. The challenge of online reputation management lies in the time, resources, and technology budget needed. Many of our clients ask, “Where do I start?” Reputation monitoring and reputation management are key to building trust and credibility around your brand - directly impacting your revenues. Simply put, your online reputation can be your biggest asset if managed well, and if not, it can also be your worst liability. Three by Three It’s as simple as one-two-three! Starting with the three-step process of reputation monitoring and management: Three by Three Cycle (ORM) Set-up your monitoring system or platform Gather data Carry out reputation management activities And repeat Then there are three ways to approach online reputation management (ORM): Social listening tracks mentions of your brand, service, or product on open social networks, blogs, micro blogging sites, news sites and forums. Review monitoring uses specific review sites like Google, Angie’s List, Better Business Bureau, Yelp, TripAdvisor, and so on. Search results monitoring is where Philippines Photo Editor you check search engine (predominantly Google) results for brand mentions. To manage your reputation in Google, you need a good SEO strategy. What Tools Monitor Online Reputation? Theoretically you can manually search for your brand’s name on search engines or social media sites, but because the number of channels and internet users is enormous, there are tools to help you efficiently monitor your online reputation. Choose technology that can: Tally the volume of mentions or reviews Measure the sentiment or score. Establish sources and cloud terms. Identify influencers. Contact your local WSI Consultant for advice on the best tool for your needs. ORM Tools Presentation Image How to Respond to Negative Reviews First, what not to do: ignore reviews, even the bad ones! The stats speak for themselves: While 94% of consumers say that a bad review has convinced them to avoid a business, 44.6% of consumers say they’re more likely to visit a business that responds to negative reviews. Additionally, 40% of consumers expect brands to respond within the first hour of reaching out on social media, while 60% expect a response in the first 24 hours. Because the public finds exclusively glowing reviews a tad suspicious, negative reviews actually increase your credibility. Harvard Business School found that consumers like to see a mix of good, moderate, and bad reviews when trying to determine if a business is trustworthy. That’s the why, now for the how. Prepare for negative reviews by: Responding promptly. Assigning the reviewing job to someone specific. Publishing an internal response policy. Empowering the people whose job it is to respond. Have a tracking system that assures all negatives are addressed. How to Elicit Positive Reviews While responding to positive reviews may be easier, never pass up the opportunity to say, “Thank You!” for the unsolicited feedback. Encourage the happy customer to return, and mention other products or services that they should try. Reinforce the positive by sharing the compliment with your team… and the world. Key to ORM is advocating positive reviews. Here are some tips: Monitor your brand to determine your baseline. Design a user-friendly website. Showcase your expertise with a blog. Be active on social media. Prove that you are accessible by replying to every question or opinion. Share your achievements and awards. Keep your content simple. For more insight or assistance on how to grow your business with online reputation management – or any other digital marketing strategies – contact your local WSI agency today. You can watch the full webinar presentation below: