Google’s new page experience update, announced January 2022, is now rolling out for desktop search results and is expected to finish by the end of the month.
Here are 3 things you should know about the new update and how it will affect your law firm’s website.
Understanding Google’s Page Experience Update
Google’s page experience update includes several elements that are known as “Core
Web Vitals” that “measure dimensions of web usability such as load time, interactivity, and the stability of content as it loads.” These vitals help Google determine the quality of user experience and are important factors affecting your firm’s website ranking on the search engine.
These elements were rolled out by Google in early 2021 and first served to measure the user experience of a mobile site. Google’s new page experience update for March 2022 will now include these signals for desktop sites (with the exception of the mobile-friendliness requirement).
What are Google’s Core Web Vitals?
HTTPS Security: HTTPS websites, such as those built using LawLytics, provide three key layers of protection (encryption, data integrity, and authentication) to guard the integrity and confidentiality of data between the user’s computer and the website.
Absence of Intrusive Interstitials: Intrusive interstitials are web page pop-ups that block content and prompt the visitor to physically dismiss the pop-up before they can continue consuming content. Exceptions to these include cookie compliance notifications and other inlines or banners that take up 15% or less of the page.
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): LCP reports the load time of a page by focusing on the time it takes the largest image or text block to become visible relative to when the page first began loading.
First Input Delay (FID): FID measures page load responsiveness. This measurement is determined from when the visitor first interacts with the page (via a click, tap, etc.) to when the page responds to that interaction.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): CLS ultimately measures the stability of a web page’s visible elements by evaluating the cumulative score of whenever the page has experienced an element changing its position from one frame to the next. CLS issues are most often caused by images or videos without dimensions and ads that appear at the top of web pages. The browser begins loading these elements without knowing their full dimensions which may result in a shift in page layout.
How does this update affect law firm websites?
Each year, Google makes a variety of algorithm updates to provide its users with the best quality search results. Updates such as this March 2022 Google page experience rollout are intended to improve search results by encouraging webmasters to provide a high-quality user experience on their sites.
While it is important to monitor the vitals of your mobile and desktop websites, Google awards ranking prioritization to pages that provide “the best information overall, even if some aspects of page experience are subpar.” This disclaimer from Google should highlight to attorneys that there is no quick fix to ranking high on Google. Rather, attorneys should focus on creating informative and high-quality content for their law firm’s website. For helpful advice and inspiration on creating content for your firm’s website, check out our Content tag on the blog.
So, what are your action items following the rollout of the new Google page experience update this month? If you’re a member of LawLytics, you’re good to go: Our platform optimizes your website to ensure that it is as Google-friendly as possible and has strong Core Web Vitals.
If you’re not a member of LawLytics and want to ensure that your website is ready to succeed with Google, we can help. Schedule a 20-minute personalized demo to see how LawLytics can help your firm perform better with Google and potential clients alike.