А New Theatre Experience: Page Experience Signals

Abstract

In the digital age struggling with the pandemic, theatres strive to gain new and retain old audiences by providing user experiences online. Information about events, electronic ticket purchasing, and live streaming require improved website functionality, where Page Experience Signals, the latest practice recommended by Google, have been gaining importance. As part of this research, five experiential signals were analyzed on a sample consisting of 18 Belgrade theatres’ homepages: Core Web Vitals, Mobile-friendliness, Safe browsing, Secure connection, and the absence of intrusive interstitials. All analyzed websites were found to provide safe internet search and generally did not contain disruptive content on their homepages. Given that an increasing number of visitors are using mobile devices to search for and purchase tickets, several theatres should pay attention to the need to optimize their website for mobile visits, and to secure the data transfer protocol. In addition, common weaknesses in the theatres’ Page Experience Signals were highlighted – the slow homepage loading performance and achieving their visual stability; the webmasters were also given proposals on overcoming them during the transition period after the algorithm change. The recommendation for future research is to assess at the end of 2021 whether the Page Experience Signals of the Belgrade theatres have contributed positively or negatively to their organic search performance on Google. Article received: June 3, 2021; Article accepted: June 23, 2021; Published online: October 15; Original scholarly article How to cite this article: Krstić, Nataša. "А New Theatre Experience: Page Experience Signals." AM Journal of Art and Media Studies 26 (October 2021): 129-141. doi: 10.25038/am.v0i26.476