How to Prepare for Google’s 2021 Page Experience Update

Google has updated their page experience algorithm and your website’s page rankings may be affected. Here’s the low-down on what’s being changed and how you can improve your SEO rankings with Sitefinity DX 14.0.

What’s Changed

Beyond keyword and linking strategy, having a user-friendly web experience goes a long way in optimizing your page rankings. To date, Google has taken into account mobile responsiveness, safe-browsing, HTTPS security and pop-up advertising when ranking your pages based on user experience. With Google’s 2021 Page Experience update, Google is adding three more criteria to its algorithm, called Core Web Vitals, to promote user-centric experiences.

The three new Google Page Experience criteria are related to:

• Loading Experience—Measures how long it takes for the critical, most relevant content on your page to load, called Largest Contentful Paint (LCP).
• Response Time—Looks at how long it takes for your page to respond when a visitor interacts with a specific element, or First Input Delay (FID).
• Visual Stability—Calculates how stable your page loading experience is, otherwise known as Cuumulative Layout Shift (CLS).

Clearly, as outlined by Google, responsiveness and page speed are at the heart of offering a better user experience. These new requirements have been implemented this past summer, so if you haven’t already, expect to notice some fluctuations in your page rankings.

We specifically introduced new capabilities in Sitefinity DX 14.0 to equip you with the right tools to meet these new requirements and optimize your rankings. Before we get into that, let’s dive into a real-life example of a Sitefinity customer that was able to achieve better SEO results by focusing on optimizing their page performance.

Better Performance = Amazing Results

When you optimize your page responsiveness and speed, it's like the gift that just keeps on giving. Not only do your page rankings improve, but you’ll also see increased traffic, on-page engagement and conversions. Raising the visibility of your web content via search and delivering a better visitor experience is a win-win.

Take it from Ruukki, a Sitefinity customer and a leading supplier of steel-based products and services for roofs and walls used in building sustainable buildings. Kiril Jovchev, CMS Competence Lead at Ruukki’s implementing partner, Siili, described the problem: “Five years ago, our Google page speed insights scored 70 or 80—all green, all good. Over time, this deteriorated to 10 out of 100. What was originally fast, was not fast according to current standards.” So, they modernized their Sitefinity instance and moved to ASP.NET MVC, a simplified development framework, which was ideal for faster site speed. And the results were immediate. Ruukki’s Google site speed rating up to 80—a 700% increase vs. the pre-launch scores and in turn, they saw a 50% lead increase on that product.

Optimize Your Site for Google’s 2021 Page Experience Update with Sitefinity DX 14.0

Ruukki was able to achieve all that by moving to a more recent version of Sitefinity. And now with Sitefinity DX 14.0 available, customers get access to even more tools purpose-built to support customers in meeting Google’s new criteria, including:

• WebP Support
• Adaptive Image Sizing
• Prioritized Element Loading

WebP Support

WebP images typically achieve an average of 30% more compression compared to JPEG and JPEG 2000, without loss of image quality, according to Google. Using this image format across your site will help your pages load faster. With Sitefinity DX 14.0, you can leverage WEBP images across your digital experience to captivate your audience with your imagery—and do it quickly.

Adaptive Image Sizing

We’ve introduced adaptive image sizing as a part of Sitefinity DX 14.0 so images will automatically load as a smaller file size when accessed on a smaller device, allowing you to deliver fast experiences with high quality images on any device your visitors may be using. With optimal image sizing based on screen size, pages will load faster, without any manual work from you. Easily configure responsive images that load quickly while still being high quality.

Prioritized Element Loading

Sitefinity DX 14.0 also includes a performance and UX best practice called, “lazy-loading.” This allows pages to load faster by loading non-critical resources and elements on a page at the moment a visitor accesses them. This contrasts with the standard way which loads each element all at once, which can cause a lower page load time and simply not as efficient.

Have No Fear, Sitefinity DX 14.0 is Here!

Worried about the new Google Page Experience Update? Don’t be. We’ve got you covered with the tools you need to not only maintain your page rankings, but also improve them with responsive pages that deliver a fantastic user experience, no matter what device your visitors are using.

Try Sitefinity DX 14.0

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