How Google's Page Experience Update Impacts Small Business SEO Rankings

The Impact of Google's Page Experience Update on Small Business SEO

In May 2021, Google rolled out a major update to their search algorithm called the Page Experience Update. This update was designed to prioritize pages with a good user experience in search rankings. For small businesses who rely on organic search traffic, the Page Experience Update has had a significant impact on SEO and website optimization strategy.

In this post, we'll break down what the Page Experience Update is, how it works, who it impacts most, and actionable tips small businesses can take to improve their page experience scores.

What is the Page Experience Update?

The Page Experience Update specifically looks at three aspects of a web page:

• Core Web Vitals - Metrics like LCP, FID and CLS that measure site speed, responsiveness and stability.
• Mobile-friendliness - Whether the site is easy to use on mobile devices.
• Safe browsing - Is the site free from intrusive pop-ups and interstitials?

Sites that do well in these areas may get a boost in rankings. Sites with poor page experience scores may see a decline in organic traffic and visibility.

Why Does Page Experience Matter?

Google wants to surface fast, user-friendly sites in search results. Slow, clunky sites frustrate users and cause high bounce rates. So Google is incentivizing sites to improve their page experience to keep users happy.

For small businesses, page experience is especially important because:

• Small business sites often lag on web performance compared to bigger brands.
• A majority of searchers looking for local businesses are on mobile.
• Poor page experience leads to lost sales and conversions.

Improving page experience is not just about pleasing Google. It's about optimizing your site for actual visitors.

Who Does This Update Impact Most?

The Page Experience Update impacts almost every business website. However, small businesses tend to be affected more for a few key reasons:

1. Less resources to optimize websites for Core Web Vitals performance.
2. More likely to have sites on outdated platforms like Flash or non-responsive site builders.
3. May lack expertise in site performance best practices.
4. Rely heavily on organic traffic from high-intent keywords.

Larger enterprises may have more site resources and expertise. Small businesses need to ensure core web vital performance is a priority to stay visible.

How to Measure Your Page Experience Scores

Google offers a number of free tools to help you measure your page experience metrics:

• PageSpeed Insights - Analyzes site performance.
• Mobile-Friendly Test - Checks mobile optimization.
• Safe Browsing Tool - Identifies unsafe experiences.
• Search Console - Reports on core web vitals.

Third-party tools like GTmetrix, WebPageTest and Lighthouse also provide page experience audits.

Measure your scores regularly and aim for at least "good" ratings in each category.

Tips to Improve Your Page Experience Scores

Here are some key ways small businesses can optimize page experience:

1. Enable caching and compression to accelerate load times.
2. Resize and optimize images to improve LCP.
3. Minify CSS, JS and HTML files to reduce page weight.
4. Defer non-critical JS to increase TBT/FID.
5. Lazy load iframes and videos below the fold.
6. Simplify page layouts and remove unnecessary elements.
7. Ensure mobile responsiveness with a mobile-first design.
8. Preload key requests and use DNS prefetching.
9. Set text appropriately sized for mobile screens.
10. Add structured data markup for richer indexing.

Technical optimizations like these can significantly boost your page speed, stability and mobile-friendliness. But also look at layout, content, and ease of navigation through the eyes of a mobile user.

Invest in Your Website Health

With the Page Experience Update, having a fast, mobile-friendly website is no longer optional - it's a must for ranking well. For small businesses, getting your page experience scores into at least the "good" range should be a top priority.

Don't wait to make improvements until you see rankings drop. Be proactive in optimizing site performance and user experience. Look at your site analytics and see where visitors struggle. Run free diagnostics and address weak points. Continue monitoring scores and iterating.

A healthy website ensures visitors convert and helps retain your organic visibility. Make page experience a regular part of your SEO strategy, not just a one-time fix. Your future ranking potential depends on it.