AI Overviews at the top of search engine results pages and the power of AI platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Grok are affecting SEO strategy big time. In fact, over 80% of marketers say automation and AI impact their SEO strategies, according to a 2024 HubSpot survey.
The good news is SEO remains a solid investment for most businesses today.
Maximizing Your SEO in Today’s AI-Driven World
There are many steps you can take to maximize your website’s SEO in today’s AI-driven world. One such step that I’ve noticed is sometimes overlooked by businesses is page experience.
“Page experience” is a Google Search ranking factor that helps determine how good your users’ experience is on your website. Understanding page experience and how to maximize it is important for anyone looking to grow their website.
Here are some key factors that comprise page experience:
- Do your pages score well on Google’s Core Web Vitals metrics?
- Are the pages of your website secure?
- Does your website display well on mobile devices?
- Is your content affected by overuse of ads that distract users?
There are more! For the full list, I recommend checking out Google’s official documentation here.
It’s vital your website provides an outstanding page experience. Not only does doing so make your visitors happier, it also makes Google happier.
And a happy Google – one that views your website in a favorable light – is an important one to have in order to maximize your SEO.
How can I Improve My Page Experience?
Let’s talk about two actionable steps you can take to quickly improve your website’s page experience and SEO performance. Note – if your website isn’t secure (meaning it’s not using an https url) be sure to take care of that immediately. That’s a simple fix. All you need to do is install an SSL certificate, which usually just requires the click of a button within your hosting provider’s dashboard (GoDaddy, Bluehost, etc.).
Maximize Your Website’s Performance
The first thing you’ll want to do to improve your website’s page experience is to evaluate your website’s performance. You can measure this by exploring how well your website scores on Google’s Core Web Vitals, which can be found in your site’s Google Search Console instance.
From my experience, one of the biggest issues most small-to-midsize businesses face is slow website load speed. The great news is there are plenty of ways to improve this! If slow load speeds go unchecked, however, they can seriously damage your website’s SEO performance because slow load speeds hurt page experience.
Be sure to optimize your website’s core vitals!
Maximize Your Website’s Design for all Devices
Another key step you’ll want to take to maximize page experience is to ensure your website looks and operates perfectly on desktop and mobile devices. Don’t skimp on either version — make sure both are great.
As previously mentioned, Google’s page experience heavily considers your website’s formatting on different devices when determining your score.
Never make the mistake that the mobile version of your website is less important than the desktop version. Treat them as equals (although if I had to choose which one is the most important, the mobile version would be my answer for most companies).
Google talked about the importance of mobile-first websites and marketing years ago, and that trend hasn’t changed. People use their phones more than ever to find the information they need and the products and services they want to purchase.
Ensure both are great.
In Closing
If you want your company to win at SEO in today’s AI-powered era, you have to make sure your website’s page experience is top-notch. Take advantage of information in the Google Search Console and implement important technical modifications to maximize your website’s performance and formatting. Your lead generation will thank you later!
