Pharma and clinical trial marketers are facing a new set of challenges later this year. As if any of us were running short of challenges!
If your focus is on building online visibility for your company, study or your brand, you should know that Google is moving to make a measurement called Core Web Vitals an important ranking factor.
Watch the Intro to Core Web Vitals Video
Core Web Vitals are part of a series of long-term algorithm updates called the Google Page Experience Update. Core Web Vitals are expected to go live as a key ranking factor in May of 2021
You may want to check your Analytics to see if your site has experienced a drop in web traffic or engagement. Some sites are already reporting ranking losses.
The big thing to ‘take away’ from this is not that Google has created another hoop for us to jump through – though they have. The key point is that major changes like this always represent an opportunity. If your website has fallen behind your competition, or if you simply have no search marketing in place, this is a great time to get it fixed.
Here is the technical stuff.
Core Web Vitals are specific factors that Google regards as important for a website’s user experience. Core Web Vitals consists of three specific page speed and user interaction measurements:
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) – a measurement of how long the largest item in the initial view of your web page takes to load
First Input Delay (FIL) – a measurement of how long it takes for a website to become interactive or ‘clickable’
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) – a measure of the stability of the page layout during page load, how much do elements bounce around.
You can test your websites Core Web Vitals by going to the Google Page Speed test at https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/ .
Once the test runs, scroll down for the CWV data. Feel free to contact us with questions.
In a recent online survey of SEO professionals, 56% percent expect the Core Web Vitals update in April to have some or significant impact on search ranking.
Google updates, or changes to the algorithm are always focused on one thing; improving the search results so that they are as relevant and useful to the user as possible. This user experience includes the speed, mobile-friendliness, and security of the website. Google knows that users will not wait for slow sites. So it makes sense that sites that are slow or that put users at risk by not being secure, will struggle to gain search visibility.
In order to meet user expectations, Google standards require a page to load in 3 seconds or less. The average business website loads in about 15 seconds. In fact, Primarous Consulting recently completed an analysis of the Top 25 Pharmaceutical websites and not a single one passed the Google Core Web Vitals standards. The complete analysis and video will be released shortly.
If your website is slow, not mobile-friendly or fails to meet other Google ranking standards, it will be extremely difficult to achieve top search visibility for high-value terms.
Google is always changing the rules and yes, it’s definitely important to keep up with the changes. It’s also important to know there are hundreds of other ranking factors that impact ranking and visibility.
Building and maintaining top search ranking requires 1) ongoing development of unique and valuable content combined with 2) organic and technical search engine optimization.
Most of us are aware that our online visibility has never been more important. The past year has meant fewer opportunities for meetings, events and other traditional means of marketing and building visibility. These traditional means of marketing also have an uncertain future. But getting your online marketing together can gain you significant marketing ROI.
And Google just gave you the perfect opportunity to get started!