Tomorrow, Tuesday 21st April 2015, when you take out your smartphone & search for that perfect dress from the amateur dressmaker you find online yesterday, chances are you won’t find her website as easily if at all… And why is that?
Tomorrow Google are rolling out a world wide update to their ranking algorithms, specifically ranking “Mobile Friendly” websites at the top of the search page. This update affects mobile platforms in all languages and will, as had their last update in 2014, drastically change first page search result rankings for the worse (Moz.com, 2015).
Google have decided to commit to mobile as they noted that 60% of all daily searches are generated from mobile traffic (Comscore.com, 2014)
This impressive statistic backs up Google’s willingness to fully commit to mobile. Google have always said that was content was key to having a high ranking… But with the incredibly rapid shift towards mobile platforms, Google are now no longer content with content. They now want companies to keep the end-user’s experience in mind when designing their websites. (Atkinson, 2015). Until recently, it was difficult for entrepreneurs to determine what exactly Google was taking into consideration whilst testing websites for their mobile-friendliness.
Therefore in order to not be penalized because your website is not considered mobile friendly, here are a few tips that will render your desktop website more “mobile friendly” and therefore potentially avoid what some are calling the “Mobilegeddon” (DeMers, 2015). The tips below were drawn from the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog as well as a handy infographic made by SumAll.
3 Essential Updates
- Large, easy-to-read titles and text
- Easy-to-click links
- Responsive Page Layout: pages that automatically resize proportionate to the window size available
Tips on Google’s Ranking Criteria (Sumall.com)
- The easiest way to verify whether or not your website is mobile friendly is to use a Google certified program to “grade” your website. Please click here: Google Mobile-Friendly Test
- Bear in mind Google will judge on a page-by-page basis your site’s mobile-friendliness.
- Small text and videos will result in a lower “grade”
- Google will weigh your site’s average loading time. This means image, video or content rich pages will affect your site’s loading time.
- Fluidity of experience: Does your site force your viewer to download an app? To click on another link? Unnecessary intermediaries will also result in a lower “grade”
- Ensure you allow GoogleBots to scan CSS & JS files on your website to increase its “grade”
References
Atkinson, D. (2015). Is Your Site Mobile Ready for Google’s Big Algorithm Change? (Infographic). [online] Entrepreneur. Available at: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/245089 [Accessed 20 Apr. 2015].
comScore, Inc, (2015). Major Mobile Milestones in May: Apps Now Drive Half of All Time Spent on Digital. [online] Available at: http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Blog/Major-Mobile-Milestones-in-May-Apps-Now-Drive-Half-of-All-Time-Spent-on-Digital#imageview/0/ [Accessed 20 Apr. 2015].
DeMers, J. (2015). Is Your Website Optimized For Mobile? You Have Until April 21 To Get It Done. [online] Forbes. Available at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2015/03/31/is-your-website-optimized-for-mobile-you-have-until-april-21-to-get-it-done/ [Accessed 20 Apr. 2015].
Moz.com, (2015). Google Algorithm Change History – Moz. [online] Available at: http://moz.com/google-algorithm-change [Accessed 20 Apr. 2015].
Official Google Webmaster Central Blog, (2015). Finding more mobile-friendly search results. [online] Available at: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/finding-more-mobile-friendly-search.html [Accessed 20 Apr. 2015].
SumAll, (2015). How Google’s Algorithm Change Will Drastically Affect Your Website’s Traffic – SumAll. [online] Available at: http://blog.sumall.com/journal/googles-algorithm-change-will-drastically-affect-websites-traffic.html [Accessed 20 Apr. 2015].