Google updates its algorithms fairly often, several hundred times per year in small updates, but every so often a big update comes along that can have serious implications for your page rankings. The May 2021 Google Update promises to be just that.
The way that Google is warning us about this update several months before it’s implemented means it’s likely to be a gamechanger, and chances are that you need to take action with your website to make sure you come out as a winner or risk dropping several pages down those Google search results if you don’t.
In this blog I’m going to go through what the May 2021 Google update includes and the ways that you can make sure your website is prepared for it ahead of time. The really good news is that this is the very approach I take with my SEO clients anyway, so if you’ve worked with me before there’s only a few small things to take care of. If you haven’t worked with me and would like an SEO expert to help prepare your website for the Google May Update, get in touch with me now.
A new ranking factor is being introduced – Page Experience
On-page SEO is something you’ve probably heard mentioned before and it’s something that those of us working in the SEO industry have taken seriously for a while, but this is the first time that Google have made it a specific ranking factor (or at least named it as such).
There are several key areas that will be brought together under the page experience umbrella, including some existing search signals. They are:
- mobile-friendliness
- safe-browsing and HTTPS
- intrusive interstitials (pop-ups)
- site loading speed
- visual aspects
- interactivity
Essentially, they want your website to be safe and easy to use for your audience, with no irritations like pop-ups that can’t be closed, etc.
Let’s take a look at each of these areas in a little more detail.
Mobile friendliness as a ranking factor
More and more people are taking to their mobile phones to use Google rather than their laptops or desktop computers. Latest available figures account for 51% of searches through mobile, but this was for 2019. It’s highly likely that the Covid-19 pandemic has caused this figure to increase much higher.
With that in mind, Google wants to ensure that your website is easy to use on a mobile device – what’s known as “mobile responsiveness”. It means that the design should work just as well on a small mobile screen as a large one, with text that’s easy to read and a clean design that makes it easy to understand.
A lot of people design and create websites using their desktop, which makes sense, but even though the apps, software and themes used to do this claim to be mobile responsive, unless you look at it through a small screen from day one, these websites aren’t as good for mobiles as they could be.
What does Google mean by safe browsing?
With so many scammers, hackers, viruses and malware to be found on the internet, the last thing Google wants is to send their search users to a corrupted website.
We all want to be safe online and Google is doing all it can to ensure that we are by using safety and security as search signals in their page experience ranking factor – dodgy websites (and those that look like they might be) are ranked lower than reputable sites in the hopes that they won’t be visited.
Unfortunately, this might mean that if you’re not on the ball with your website security, you might slide down those search positions.
Your website needs to be updated often, have decent security in place (such as a plugin if you’re using WordPress), be difficult to hack and using HTTPS to ensure safe and secure transfer of information between your website and your visitors.
Also make sure that you’re following GDPR rules and regulations (or the equivalent in your country) with relevant cookie policies and opt-ins on your website too.
Are pop-ups useful or just intrusive?
I’ll admit, I’ve trialled using pop-ups on this website and didn’t find much success with them. I think we’re just so used to annoying pop-ups these days, that we often look for the “x” to get rid of them even before we can see if they might be useful to use or not.
It’s the pop-ups that you can’t click out of easily that are of concern to Google here (possibly those sites with repeated pop-ups too). These “intrusive interstitials” can block the entire page, sometimes don’t have a click out option unless you sign up to the offer (or it’s very cleverly hidden) and generally get in the way of people accessing the content they’ve landed on that page for.
I think whether you use pop-ups or not are up to you but if you do use them, make sure that they’re relevant, can be clicked out of easily and don’t block the valuable content you want people to see.
Sorry guys, the tortoise doesn’t win the race on this occasion
Slow and steady might win the race more often than not but when it comes to Google, fast loading times are important. It’s all down to psychology, it’s proven that if people have to wait too long for a page to load, they’ll just click back to the results page and go to a different website. So, Google skip that step and put the competition ahead of the slow loading page/website.
A page might be slow loading for a number of reasons, and it’s one of the easiest aspects of technical SEO to fix too. Things to look out for include:
Server location – try to use a server in your country (or that of your audience) as the further the audience is away from it, the longer it can take to load. (Sure, it’s probably microseconds but it all adds up).
Large file sizes – usually images are the culprit. If you have large image sizes and you’re relying on your theme to change the size to suit the design, this is putting additional strain on the server to do the job and adds to the loading time. Make sure you’re using the right sized images for what they’re being used for (and that they’re compressed too).
Bloated theme – some themes are notorious for adding unnecessary bloated coding to websites (even when they’ve promised to reduce it, it’s still not great), some page builders too. It’s often the case that homemade websites (as opposed to developer built) contain this kind of bloat and it can really slow down a website.
Too many plugins – how many plugins should you have? Enough to get the job done and no more. If you have plugins for occasional use, deactivate them until needed. Each plugin calls on the server to do their job and so the more you have, the more demand is placed on that server and the longer it takes for a site to load. Ensure there are no plugin conflicts and you’re only using what you really need.
Visually pleasing but damaging your SERP?
A website that looks good is important but if you’re not careful and you allow design to take precedence over everything else, you’re only setting yourself up for an SEO fail.
Images should be used sparingly, i.e., only when they add something to your website. This might be an image of a product you’re selling, or an image that reinforces the message you’re trying to get across. Instead of being image heavy, consider use of colour throughout the website and small icons as a way to add visual interest instead.
Another factor to consider, and one that Google is taking notice of with the May Update is alt text. This is the text read out to disabled users (those using screen readers) and so it’s important for an accessibility point of view – if your images are important (and they should be) make sure that everyone can understand why!
You can read more about image-based SEO and why it’s so important here.
Is your website interactive or there to be read?
Interactivity is one of the search signals being used for the page experience ranking factor and it’s worth taking a minute or two to understand what is meant by “interactivity” in the context of your website.
A typical journey through your website is visitor lands on page, clicks on link to another page, makes contact through the contact form/messenger app. That journey might be longer for some with many more pages clicked through to, but that’s basically how it works.
The interactive elements in that journey are the links/buttons and the contact form (might also include the mailto: function if you share your email address, etc too).
The problem with many websites is that there aren’t clear calls to action with these links/buttons for people to click on. So, they land on a page, read it and leave the website (known as the bounce rate) rather than exploring the rest of the website and what you have to offer. And no, sorry, people generally don’t search through the menus for what they’re looking for, another quirk to the psychology of online behaviour.
The problem is when that bounce rate gets too high. Google determines that people aren’t interested in interacting with your website (or unable to) and sees this as a problem, dropping you down the search results.
Understanding the entry and exit points for your website visitors, the journey they take and placing relevant calls to action, links and buttons to key areas of your website are essential (and not too difficult to do!)
Google May 2021 Update Checklist – what you can do today to prepare
So, now you understand what Google will be looking for in websites after they’ve rolled out the May update, these are the tasks you can do in the next few weeks to get ready for it.
- Ensure you have https installed and that it’s working
- Make sure you’re using a good security plugin and updating it often
- Check with your hosts that the files hosted on their server are being checked for viruses and malware often (there might be a function for you to do an anti-virus scan yourself in the control panel)
- Make sure your website is data protection compliant, with relevant policies and a cookie opt-in/opt-out.
- Look at your website on a mobile phone – can you use it properly? Check each page and complete the contact form, etc to be sure. Does it look good and function well?
- Use Google’s Mobile Friendly test – and address the issues it finds (it gives suggestions on how to do this)
- Review your pop-ups if you have them. Are they working? Can they be improved/made less intrusive?
- Use Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool to check your loading times. It’ll give you a checklist to work through of the issues affecting your website’s speed.
- Check your plugins – are they working well and without conflicts? Can you remove some? Are there alternative plugins that might work better or combine two or more plugins into just one?
- Review the images used on your website. Are they relevant? Do they add to what you’re trying to say? Are they the right size and compressed to a small file size?
- Add relevant alt text to your images on the website – describe the image to someone that can’t see it rather than just putting “business logo”.
- Check Google Analytics to find your visitors journey and the bounce rate. Where are they leaving the site? Are they interacting with your site? What can you do to improve it?
- Review your copy and content – give things an update for 2021 and ensure you have relevant calls to action, and plenty of internal links/buttons to other areas of your website.
One of the best things you can do for this update is to keep on top of your content-based SEO. Part of providing a fantastic page experience to your visitors is by keeping them on your website with informative content (and then linking them to more content, and so on).
Keep blogging, use social media and encourage your audience to visit your website and discover what you have to offer. Do that and the 13 points on the checklist, and the May 2021 Google Update will do you no harm, it might even push you up the rankings to that front page sweet spot!
