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Jennifer Esty

Google confirms timing for bringing page experience to Google Search

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On Tuesday Google confirmed that page experience signals in ranking will roll out in May 2021.

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Setting New Standards

The news follows the May 2020 announcement of a new set of standards for measuring “page experience”. That is, whether a particular web page delivers its content in a way that gives a positive experience for the user.

The new signals will combine Core Web Vitals with existing search signals, including: mobile-friendliness, safe-browsing, HTTPS-security, and intrusive interstitial guidelines.

What does this mean for you as a website owner?

If you have started already, you need to ensure that your site, and landing pages, meet the new standards or risk seeing your search engine results penalised for poor performance (and higher performing competitors given a boost).

Fortunately Google has put in place clear guidelines for how they will measure page experience. And they have provided a suite of tools to help site owners identify and fix issues.

Search Console: use the report for Core Web Vitals for an overview of how your site is doing and a details into any issues.

Page Speed Insights: get your CWV score and suggestions on where to make improvements (also helpful for ongoing testing as you make changes to your site)

For the full suite of Google tools, visit Google’s Tools to measure Core Web Vitals.

For more detailed information, check out our previous blog post on the announcement back in May.

If you’d like help understanding the impact of page experience on your B2B digital marketing strategy, or with any other aspect of B2B digital marketing, contact us today for a no-obligation consultation.

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    Is the B2B Buying Journey Really Changing?

    Jennifer Esty September 3, 2025

    The B2B buying journey is changing at a fast pace, and B2B marketers must evolve their brand’s digital footprint now or risk obscurity in this new world.

    Revising your marketing plan in a time of uncertainty? 5 best practice tips for digital excellence

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    Before you change your plans, read our 5 best practice tips for digital marketing excellence in this time of uncertainty.

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    LinkedIn

    The social networking behemoth is now even more important for staying in touch with customers and prospects. Take the time to audit your Company Page and personal profiles of key colleagues. Make sure they are updated with relevant messaging, polished branding, and clear signals that you’re ready to connect and interact online.

    Now is definitely the time to develop a rich content strategy and a team of online influencers to reach prospects in the absence of offline activity.

    PPC

    If you’re looking to reallocate marketing funds, PPC is almost certainly a good investment right now. Focus on intent-based, high value keywords and best practice basics like brand ads and remarketing campaigns.

    Whilst search volumes for many B2B products and services may decrease for a period of time, being found for those searches is even more critical now and you will stand out even more (and pay less) if competitors have made the ill-advised decision to turn off all PPC advertising.

    Read our blog on Managing PPC in the emerging Coronavirus situation for more tips.

    Google My Business

    If your business has changed or reduced opening hours, make sure you update your Google My Business (GMB) listing to let customers and prospects know.

    GMB has also introduced a “temporarily closed” status if you have physical shops or offices that you wish to mark closed during the lockdown.

    Similarly, if your main contact numbers have changed, updating them on your listing is vitally important.

    Analytics

    With so many of your customers and prospects working from home, your IP tracking software probably isn’t offering you a lot of help right now.

    However, the LinkedIn Insight can give you rich insights into who is interacting with your website and landing pages, and gives you an opportunity to create remarketing lists for LinkedIn campaigns. If you don’t have it already, the tag is easy to create and deploy.

    Website

    Including a business continuity message on your site will give customers and prospects reassurance that you are open for business—or can set their expectations on response times or any changes in the services you can provide.

    Also, with traffic likely to be lower and overall activity reduced, now might be just the time to make those important changes or updates to your site. You’ll lower any risks during deployment and are likely to have more time to focus on strategic improvements, better content and increased conversion—all ready to provide a best practice customer experience when it’s business as usual again.

    Need more help?

    If you need any help with your digital strategy, Sharp Ahead are offering a free 30-minute consultation to qualified B2B companies. You can book one online today.

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      Is the B2B Buying Journey Really Changing?

      Jennifer Esty September 3, 2025

      The B2B buying journey is changing at a fast pace, and B2B marketers must evolve their brand’s digital footprint now or risk obscurity in this new world.

      Managing B2B PPC in the emerging Coronavirus situation

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      The Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic is a fast-changing situation at the time of writing (16th March 2020). While it will take some time for the full impact to become clear, it is obvious that it will have both immediate and longer-term impacts on businesses of all sorts.

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      We manage PPC activity, especially paid search (e.g. Google Ads) and paid social (e.g. LinkedIn Advertising), for many B2B clients. So we need to consider the impact of COVID-19 on B2B PPC across a range of businesses.

      Based on our experience to date here are some tips on how B2B PPC managers should be responding to the COVID-19 situation.

      Be proactive

      One advantage of PPC is its controllability – changes in campaign setup have an immediate impact. So PPC managers are well placed to react to the emerging COVID-19 situation.

      Don’t assume that a campaign setup that has performed well in business-as-usual will be adequate for the days ahead. Set aside some time to actively review your PPC activity and to make adjustments where needed. And be ready to repeat this review frequently as the COVID-19 situation evolves.

      Consider adjusting budgets and activity levels – but don’t panic

      Most businesses will experience negative impacts from COVID-19. So it is tempting to reduce PPC activity levels in order to save money. But that might be the wrong response.

      If your business is DIRECTLY impacted by COVID-19 – for instance if you operate in the hospitality sector – you know that your clients and prospects will be reducing their spend or stopping doing business with you. It is likely that bottom-of-the-funnel lead gen campaigns, at least, will have dramatically worse performance. So absolutely you should consider reducing or pausing these sorts of campaign. Either conserve the budget to save costs, or switch emphasis to invest more in activities like brand reinforcement with existing customers.

      But if your business is not directly impacted, the position is less clear. Your clients and prospects will be continuing to trade and continuing to look for suppliers. Decision makers may be working from home and will have more “laptop time”, which can provide a good opportunity for research. So lead generation campaigns may even work BETTER for these types of businesses. Monitor your campaigns closely but don’t rush to reduce spend. You may even consider spending more, if you see evidence of better engagement.

      Look for new negative keywords in paid search

      The pandemic is driving huge spikes of activity in search behaviour. Look at this example from Google Trends for the search “face masks”:

      Chart illustrating increase in the search term 'face masks'
      [source: Google Trends]

      If your product or service accidentally overlaps in some way with these new high-volume searches, you may suddenly find you are wasting your budget on bad searches. So proactively check your search term reports for COVID-19-related queries and add negative keywords where needed.

      Adjust messaging in ads and landing pages

      Your clients and prospects are likely to have concerns about your business and its approach to the situation. Don’t jump on the bandwagon. But if you have something substantial and important to say about how your business is responding to COVID-19, even if it is just to reassure, use your PPC media to communicate it. Some good channels:

      • Add a sitelink to paid search ads with details of your COVID-19 response
      • Show a remarketing display ad
      • Add a splash message to PPC landing pages

      Speak to an expert

      If you are concerned about the impact of COVID-19 on your B2B PPC, or any other aspect of your B2B digital marketing, speak to an expert at Sharp Ahead today. We offer a free 30-minute remote consultation.

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        Is the B2B Buying Journey Really Changing?

        Jennifer Esty September 3, 2025

        The B2B buying journey is changing at a fast pace, and B2B marketers must evolve their brand’s digital footprint now or risk obscurity in this new world.

        Rapidly Scale Your Digital Marketing for SaaS over Breakfast with Sharp Ahead and Accelerate

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        Join Sharp Ahead and Accelerate on the 17th March at The Curious Lounge in Reading where both agencies will be offering hands-on advice to grow your SaaS company using best practice digital marketing techniques.

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        The session will cover tips and tricks for PPC, CRO, SEO & Analytics with two amazing speakers and a panel of experts, as well leaving time for networking with peers, lots of coffee and an exclusive competition to win a free digital healthcheck.

        Speakers at this breakfast event will include digital marketer and Sharp Ahead Director, Dr John Woods, who will be discussing how to create effective landing pages and Accelerate Analytics Director, Phil Pearce, will present ‘Analytics Growth Hacking Tips for SaaS’.

        Tickets for this not-to-be-missed event are available via Eventbrite.

        So, grab your reusable coffee cup and join us for a constructive morning!

        Event details: 17th March. 8am-10am. The Curious Lounge, 20 Tudor Road, Reading, RG1 1NH. Tickets £4.99.

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          Is the B2B Buying Journey Really Changing?

          Jennifer Esty September 3, 2025

          The B2B buying journey is changing at a fast pace, and B2B marketers must evolve their brand’s digital footprint now or risk obscurity in this new world.

          Are UK VARs investing too much time and money in social media, at the expense of basic best practice?

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          Analysis of the digital footprint of the UK’s top 100 value added resellers reveals the sector lags behind in implementing digital best practice—and may need to reconsider how marketing time and spend is allocated.

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          What is digital best practice?

          In a report commissioned by channel marketing experts, coterie, 61% of VARs were missing at least one basic digital best marketing practice. The most common failures were not properly curating their Google knowledge panel or their Google search engine results pages.

          Why is this important?

          90% of B2B buyers will look online before making a purchasing decision, failure to be found—and to provide basic information—means not even getting on the consideration list for new opportunities.

          What should VARs focus on?

          From the research, 69% of companies are doing a good job generating social content, specifically on LinkedIn and Twitter.

          Social content strategies are labour-intensive and require ongoing investment, whether in internal or external resource. Whilst organic social content is important, companies run the risk of investing time and money publishing content in an echo chamber of existing contacts (customers, employees, suppliers and, yes, recruitment agents).

          Prospects are harder to reach with organic social and for growth-focused companies this investment might need a rethink.

          Conversely, only 35% of companies are doing a good job with onsite user experience. Arguably a conversion optimised website focused on prospect journeys will have a higher return on investment. Even if it is hard work to get right, positive UX only requires one-off investment every few years and should easily pay for itself.

          What next?

          To find out how you can outperform the top 100 UK VARs, and for more best practice tips, download the full report or contact us.

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            Is the B2B Buying Journey Really Changing?

            Jennifer Esty September 3, 2025

            The B2B buying journey is changing at a fast pace, and B2B marketers must evolve their brand’s digital footprint now or risk obscurity in this new world.

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