Webmaster Hangouts recently launched a bilingual version in Telugu and English. After watching it, I was quite impressed with the high-quality information provided on content ranking, the so-called medic update, and the discussion surrounding soft ranking factors.
The Hangout is a treasure trove of valuable insights. I might delve deeper into the details of this session in future writings, but I highly recommend viewing the entire Hangout. It offers substantial information in English, with the support of Closed Captioning subtitles if needed for better understanding.
For instance, someone inquired about the significance of usability and user experience as ranking factors.
The Googler shared:
"I think, purely for search ranking, user experience in terms of design and so on… it matters, but I wouldn’t say too much. As long as it’s good enough for most people, that’s fine. For example, considering Page Speed… if it loads in under a second and there are five different websites with various speeds under a second, I wouldn’t say… the fastest loading site has a major advantage… Since all these sites load swiftly, it doesn’t offer a significant ranking boost in that context. Similarly, I wouldn’t attribute excessive SEO weight to usability. It’s important, but only comes after primary elements like ranking and people linking to you."
There’s a lot to unpack in these statements.
Key Insights:
Site design’s effect on user experience is, according to this Googler, a ranking factor similar to what John Mueller describes as a soft ranking factor.
- The importance of soft ranking factors might rely on their parity across competing sites.
- If other sites match on soft factors like page speed, then other, likely more crucial factors will be decisive.
This Googler spoke in a straightforward manner, which was quite refreshing. The video contains much more to explore than detailed here.
I strongly encourage taking the time to watch the video.
Images from Shutterstock, Modified by Author
Screenshots by Author, Modified by Author
