24 Aug 2020

The new impact of UX metrics on SEO

In Q2 of this year Google announced that new metrics called “Core Web Vitals,” or automated sets of signals related to user experience, will soon impact your site’s SEO ranking (Source: Google Blog). These will be combined with existing user experience criteria, such as page load time and mobile-friendliness, to better measure and reward sites with higher quality user experiences through higher SEO rankings. In recognising that many businesses are preoccupied with responding to the effects of Covid-19, this update will not roll out until 2021 and Google will provide a 6 month notice before their algorithm is updated.

We believe user engagement will improve as experiences on the web get better, and that by incorporating these new signals into Search, we'll help make the web better for everyone.

Sowmya Subramanian, Senior Director Of Engineering Google Search

The Web Vitals cover the following areas:

Site Load Time, measured by what they call “Largest Contentful Paint,” or how quickly the site’s main content has been loaded.
Interactivity, measured by what they call “First Input Delay,” or site responsiveness of a user first interacting with the page (their first “Session” you could say).
Visual Stability, measured by what they call “Cumulative Layout Shift,” or the amount of what they deem to be unexpected layout shifts or visible page content

Source: Google Webmaster Central Blog

Source: Chromium Blog

Now UX not only impacts a user once on your site, but whether or not they’re likely to get there in the first place.

Michael Reiss, Senior Strategist Catch

Google clarified that while promoting a best in class user experiences is important, this should be coupled with high quality and relevant content. Both of these factors will be considered when calculating a site’s SEO ranking. Companies need to be confident that their SEO Strategy, such as meta-data tagging and keywords included in copy, is up to date.

While these metrics provide great starting points for considering your site’s user experience, there are many other quantitative and qualitative measures you should adopt as well. This includes activities such as running site surveys, creating a heuristic evaluation, and conducting usability tests and user interviews. It’s great to improve your site’s search rankings, but if you don’t deliver a good experience once a user lands on your site, what’s the benefit of ranking higher? This is particularly important as we know 88% of online consumers are less likely to return to a site after a bad experience (Source: SWEOR).

Google’s announcement is a great way to spark a larger conversation about the importance of user experience and an up to date SEO Strategy among your team, department, or broader company. If you need help starting these conversations, or are ready to get to work, get in touch.

Related news and work

International Women's Day 2020

08 Mar 2020

To celebrate International Women's Day 2020 we spent six minutes with six Catch women to discuss the challenges they've faced as women in digital and how they feel about the future of the industry

UX, bias & the good fight

27 Nov 2019

We all know audience research is a key component of any UX analysis and wider digital strategy, but often outputs fall down because of unconscious bias

We're a "Top 100" agency

20 Nov 2019

We're proud to announce that we've made it into the top 100 of The Drum’s annual Independent Agencies Census

20 Jan 2020

2020 UX/UI internships

We're committed to helping the next generation of digital superstars get a foothold in the industry, so each year we offer a paid internship scheme, and we've just launched our 2020 programme.

If you're thinking of applying, please check out our careers page to see what's on offer at our Digital Agency in London.

We interviewed one of our 2019 UX/UI placement students Simon Le Roux on his experience of joining our Creative Team in London from l'Ecole de Design in France.

What made you want to work at this Digital Agency in London?

I loved the UI designs I’d seen from Catch and recognized myself in their approach of design, so I applied spontaneously and am so glad I got to spend the 6 months here in London.

I’ve been wanting to work in a full-sized digital agency in London for a long time now, after having only been working with small teams of designers and startups - so the opportunity of working every day alongside designers, developers and project managers as well as what really brought me here.

What did you work on?

My main role was working cross both UI and motion design, I had the chance of having a lot of responsibilities on some of Catch’s main projects, as well as interacting with clients on a daily basis, also visualising through sketching and wireframe prototypes.

What did you learn?

Because I worked on so many different projects, I was able to gain skills in a lot more fields than I thought: UI and UX mainly, but also animation, illustration, as well as being able to explain and present my work to both project managers and clients.

I also learned what it was like to work with many different people and being able to learn a bit more on all the different steps of a project and all the people involved.

What was it like being in a Digital Agency's London studio?

I had a blast, really. The atmosphere is really nice there, everyone is really outgoing and welcoming, you get to meet people with different backgrounds, and you never get bored. You can easily fire questions at anyone, and they’ll always take the time to explain and help you.

And Friday’s catch-ups are just great, doing presentations and drinking beer(!), never seen a better way to end the week.

What was the highlight?

I’d probably say a showcase video I got to do for one of our clients, on which I had to animate some designs I’d created to give an overview of the whole product. It gave me the opportunity to mix UI and motion design, and I loved it!

What’s next?

The internship officially marks the end of my Master’s degree, I’ll get my design diploma in September. After that, I’ll be taking a gap year and travel around the world, I’ll then eventually look for a full-time UI/UX job. Maybe even in a Digital Agency in London like Catch, who knows?

If you'd like to apply for our 2020 UX/UI internship opportunity, please apply via our careers page.