The year was 2015. Google wanted to own the Search and Facebook wanted to capture Social. This was also the time when mobile was the go-to device and yours truly was writing industry articles on the next wave of Mobile/Social Commerce. What an idiot I was. Anyway, Facebook launched Instant Articles with a lot of media attention and large publishers took the bate. Because these were the days when Facebook didn’t mind clickbait articles, publishers were high on views, and advertisers were burning money.
The pitch was simple - Facebook wanted users to live and die in the walled garden of its social network. So it launched Facebook Instant Articles but all those slides showing how people will consume everything on the social network fizzled out and so did the Instant Articles.
Talk to any publisher, she will want the traffic to land on the portal and not be left on the social network. Instant Articles only served good for Facebook and not for the publishing industry.
How could Google be behind so it launched Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) - a framework optimised for mobile web browsing and intended to help webpages load faster. Google went out and said openly if you want your site to be listed on top then make it load faster or in other words, you don’t have a choice but use AMP. Suddenly all the so-called gurus were talking about how AMP can rank you better and it is a must. (Funny thing is that no one knows how Google ranks, we just keep on guessing) Back in 2016, Google said that only AMP pages could show up in the Google mobile version of top stories in Search.
It was a horrible year for medium and small publishers. Not only they had to create valuable content but it also had to be created for Instant Articles and AMP. I tried both of them, didn’t achieve anything so went back in making the website experience better.
Google had now made a new announcement on its blog giving top priority to Page Experience along with other factors to make the web better. So it is no more looking for a faster web but a better web.
“Through both internal studies and industry research, users show they prefer sites with a great page experience. We will introduce a new signal that combines Core Web Vitals with our existing signals for page experience to provide a holistic picture of the quality of a user’s experience on a web page.”
Google also states that it will introduce the page experience metrics into its ranking criteria for the Top Stories feature in Search on mobile, and remove the AMP requirement from Top Stories eligibility. In other words, it is no more an important aspect as it was in 2015.
Talking about Page Experience, Google informs that it will measure the aspect of how users perceive the experience of interacting with a web page. “Optimizing for these factors makes the web more delightful for users across all web browsers and surfaces, and helps sites evolve towards user expectations on mobile. We believe this will contribute to business success on the web as users grow more engaged and can transact with less friction.”
Now, what do you exactly mean by making “web delightful for users across all web browsers and surfaces.” For me, it is letting the reader consume content at ease and on his preferred device. In other words, let him consume content rather than ads. For instance, this is what you are served when you open the Economic Times site on your mobile. All you find a bunch of ads on your face.
Publishers have been struggling with revenue streams and when it comes to picking between experience and monetisation; the media sites fall back to monetisations. In fact, this is the reason why readers started having ad blockers in the first place.
Nonetheless, now that Google has made its stance clear, I am sure it will push this hard and once again publishers won’t have a choice. If you are a news media site then you are definitely looking for the Top Stories feature in Search on mobile.
Along with the Core Web Vitals, Google is considering factors like mobile-friendliness, safe-browsing, HTTPS-security, and intrusive interstitial guidelines, to provide a holistic picture of page experience.
AMP didn’t work the way Google wanted
Recently Backlinko.com analyzed 11.8 million Google search results to answer the question: Which factors correlate with first-page search engine rankings? One of the key findings of the study was - “Page loading speed does not have a correlation with rankings.” Even though Google has used site speed as an official ranking signal since 2010. And in 2018 “Speed Update”, was designed to provide mobile searchers with faster-loading pages.
The study measured the average loading speed across the entire domain. “Overall, we found zero correlation between site speed and Google rankings.”
According to Search Engine Land, this change will open up more publishers to be able to show up in the Top Stories section on mobile.
“That means more competition for your traffic and your keywords. But it also means that you can optimize your non-AMP pages to do well in the mobile Top Stories section and outrank your competitors that may have decided to use AMP. It also means that if you dislike using AMP and maintaining AMP pages, you can do away with them and have your normal mobile pages rank in the Top Stories section.”
For the rest of us, we still need to have a fast website that creates quality content, gives value, and provides a good experience. Just that you won’t have to worry about AMP anymore.
Website is the holy grail for your brand on digital
Earlier this year Hubspot released a report, “Not Another State Of Marketing Report” which considered the Website once again gaining the marketer’s interest and money. In fact, it is the topmost channel for marketers for their business followed by Social Media and Email.
When it came to tactics to improving site performance and ranking - Mobile Optimized Site, Improving Page load and Fixing broken links are the top three priorities. However, this will change slightly by next year when Google finally plans to roll out the new features in 2021 which gives Core Web Vitals and other features a priority.
In my 7 years of my running a publishing startup, I designed the website four times and the last one was somewhat convincing and better. I went minimal on design and invested money into the backend. That worked really well at least from the user experience point of view. It was clean, easy, and fast.
For me, Content drives a publication, and montisation follows it. That’s why it is the core and all moentisation ideas are placed around it.
So if you are redesigning your website for your brand then just keep these simple things in mind:
Before you approach a designer and developer, have clarity on what you want. Maybe have a rough design on paper. Do a search on the internet, check themes, check competitors, read about web-design, etc. Just don’t be lazy, after all, it is your brand on digital.
A mobile-optimized site is a history. Create a website for web and mobile. Mobile is a different beast you will have to make design sessions on what you want to show on Web and Mobile they just can’t be the same.
We all want a flashy dazzling site but that should not take ages to load on mobile or on the web. Site load still is a very important factor.
Invest in the backend of your website. Host it on a good CDN and try working with your developer on an effective framework. Think of it like you are building a house, the groundwork has to be solid otherwise your dazzling mansion might just come down with a strong blow.
And don’t forget to test every single piece of work. Just don’t be dependent on your agency or developer. It won’t be easy but trust it will be worth all your effort and time.
P.S. Did the article give value to your time? If yes then can you please donate to my ongoing fundraising campaign for COVID-19. Donation Link. No! come on I am trying hard. I did three articles this week. Thank You!