How the 2021 Google Algorithm Update Affects Your Website’s SEO Rank
If you’ve heard that Google will update the way it ranks websites starting sometime in 2021, you may be freaking out. Not to worry- the new algorithm updates are changing a few things, but many SEO factors are staying the same. Here’s what you need to know and some steps you can take to make sure your website is performing as well as possible.
What’s new with Google in 2021?
Google’s algorithm changes for 2021 are making the user experience of your website even more important. They’ve been making changes to prioritize mobile-friendly websites for years now, but the latest change will take ranking based on user experience even further with the Page Experience signal.
Google is now looking at five specific things when it comes to user experience:
Core Web Vitals (including loading, interactivity, and visual stability)
Mobile-Friendly
Safe Browsing
HTTPS
No Intrusive Interstitials
Only the Core Web Vitals are new here, so you’re probably already addressing the other areas that will affect your SEO ranking.
What are Core Web Vitals and what do they measure?
When it comes to Core Website Vitals, Google is looking at three different areas – loading, interactivity, and visual stability.
Loading
Loading is focused on how long it takes a website to load. Google is saying that a good user experience means that your Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) “should occur within 2.5 seconds of when a page starts loading.”
Wondering what LCP is? This metric measures the perceived load speed, as it marks the point where your webpage’s main content has loaded and a visitor can start to use your website.
Interactivity
Google is measuring interactivity based on the First Input Delay (FIC). They are measuring the experience visitors have when trying to interact with an unresponsive page. Basically, you want it to take the least amount of time possible for your website to respond to a visitor clicking on a button or link (or interacting in another way).
Your FID should be “less than 100 milliseconds” for a good user experience.
Visual Stability
Visual stability looks at how much the content on a website moves (or shifts). You’ve seen a shift anytime you’re reading a blog post and the paragraph you’re reading moves because an ad loads or when a button moves after you’ve moved to the next step in the checkout process.
Mostly, these changes are annoying, but they can also mean that a visitor clicks on the wrong button. It’s annoying to visitors and now Google will be using it for SEO (which, at least to me, is a good thing – I hate these shifts).
This will be measured as Cumulative Layout Shift or CLS. Google says that “to provide a good user experience, pages should maintain a CLS of less than 0.1.”
You can read more about the Core Web Vitals and exactly what Google is looking for here.
What isn’t changing with this Google algorithm update?
Having a mobile friendly website is incredibly important.
This update doesn’t take away from the important of having a mobile responsive design. Because half of website traffic is from mobile devices, having a mobile friendly website is important not only from an SEO standpoint, but it’s also important to your potential clients who are visiting your website from their phones.
Remember, mobile friendly doesn’t just mean that your website resizes based on the screen it’s viewed on. It’s also about having a website that loads quickly and is easy to use on a smaller, touch-based device. This includes having easy to click buttons, eliminating content that isn’t necessary on mobile (usually extra design elements), and making sure your typography is legible on all devices (especially line height, which can often be overlooked when translating a website from desktop to mobile).
Think about the user experience of both desktop and mobile visitors if you’re using pop-ups
It’s also important to consider interruptions to browsing, especially on a mobile device. This means avoiding popups and interstitial pages what make it harder for someone to navigate your website.
If you have interstitial pages where someone signs up for an opt-in or freebie, make sure that its easy to use or eliminate it on mobile altogether. I personally prefer having people signup on the same page that they learned about something, but that doesn’t work for all websites. Either way, make sure you’re thinking about the user experience of both desktop and mobile visitors.
Have pop-ups on your website? You should turn them off for mobile devices (or at a minimum, ensure that they’re easy to close). If you’re using a Squarespace promotional pop-up, you can set it to only display on desktop by going to Marketing > Promotional Pop-Up > Display & Timing. You should uncheck the Show on Mobile setting.
You need to have an SSL certificate for your site
SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer, which is technology that keeps your internet connection secure and protects any sensitive data, Basically, an SSL certificate tells Google that your website is safe to browse. The good news is that with Squarespace, you can turn this on with just a few clicks.
If you haven’t turned on SSL for your website (or if you aren’t sure), you can do to Settings > Advanced > SSL. It will tell you whether SSL is active or not. If not, you can turn it on by switching from Insecure to Secure. It might take a few hours for Google to index the update, but once it’s done, you won’t have to do anything else.
Great content is still key to your SEO ranking
If you’ve been focusing on good, longform, keyword rich content, you’re still in a great spot with Google’s update. This is one SEO ranking factor that will never go away because Google’s goal is to give searchers the results that they’re looking for. By writing good content that fits your niche and speaks to your ideal client’s problems, you’re helping them to learn. It’s good SEO and good business.
How can I make sure my website is performing well?
Google has actually made it easy to see how your website is performing for these Core Web Value metrics. If you have Search Console set up for your website, there is a new section dedicated to Core Web Values.
Don’t have Search Console set up for your Squarespace website yet? Check out my tutorial to get access to all this information.
In Search Console, navigate to the property you want to evaluate. Under Enhancements, you’ll see Core Web Vitals. This will give you a report for good and poor URLs, as well as those that need improvement. You can open the report to see which pages are under each category and what the issue is.
See your website’s performance in Search Console and check out your Core Web Vitals in the Enhancements section.
See how your pages are performing on both desktop and mobile.
Dig into which pages need improvements and what the issues might be.
What can I do to improve my SEO ranking?
In addition to making sure that you’re writing great content and serving your audience well, you should also check that your website is mobile-friendly, has an SSL certificate, and has a good user experience for visitors.
Note sure if your website’s user experience could be improved?
I did a whole episode of Process to Profitability on UX and why it’s important. You can listen to that here.
What should I change to improve my Core Web Vitals score?
When it comes to the new addition of Core Web Vitals, the most common issues for Squarespace website are usually with CLS (meaning your website moves as it’s loaded) and LCP (meaning that it isn’t loading as quickly as is ideal). While there are some things that Squarespace users can’t control, there are steps you can take to improve your Core Web Vitals (and more importantly, your website’s user experience for visitors).
Make sure your images aren’t too large. Before adding an image to your website, you should reduce the file size as much as possible. Start by cropping it to the right size, then compress the image using a tool like JPEGmini or Optimizilla.
Consider using AMP on your blog posts. Turing on AMP or Accelerated Mobile Pages can drastically reduce the amount of time it takes your blog pages to load. You can do this under Settings > Blogging > Accelerated Mobile Pages and checking Use AMP.
Remove any old or unnecessary code or Javascript. If you’ve added plugins to your website that you no longer need or if you have lots of CSS for pages that no longer exists, remove them to help your website load faster and avoid content moving around.
Turn on Ajax Loading for Squarespace 7.0 sites. Certain Squarespace 7.0 templates allow you to turn on Ajax loading. This will help your website loading appear quicker, which is especially useful on content-heavy pages like blogs. While I don’t recommend this for all websites, it can be beneficial if your website loading is slow. You can turn it on under Design > Site Styles > Site: Loading > Enable Ajax Loading. I don’t recommend turning on the loading bar. If you do choose to try Ajax Loading, be sure to check that your website still works afterwards as it can interfere with third-party code.
Remove any pages that you no longer need. If your website had pages that you aren’t using (and won’t need in the future), delete them so they aren’t taking up space.
After you make any of these changes, it will take time to see results. If you see that your website isn’t performing well on the Core Web Vitals now, set aside some time to make updates before the May 2021 implementation date of the new algorithm.
