As mobile becomes increasingly prevalent, Google is again improving search for mobile users by constantly making updates to its search engine to help prevent old, non-updated websites from ranking well and preventing spam in searches. This time around Google is changing their formula to also rank responsive websites higher than non mobile-friendly websites.
On April 21, Google is changing the algorithm for its mobile search, dubbed online as “Mobilegeddon,” placing websites that are deemed mobile friendly higher in mobile search rankings.
Websites that have had high rankings in search results could lose their prominent positions if they are not optimized for mobile devices.
This update will affect worldwide mobile search results in all languages, and Google says it will have a “significant” impact as noted in their blog post. Now is the best time for those companies that have websites that aren’t mobile friendly to update their sites.
For those companies getting started on creating a mobile friendly site, here is what you should focus on:
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- Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test
To ensure your site is still present in Google’s mobile search after April 21st, you can test your site through Google’s mobile-friendly testing tool. If you get a message, “Awesome! This page is mobile friendly,” then you’re website is mobile friendly already and you can relax, for now.If you get the message that says, “Not mobile-friendly,” then your site didn’t pass the mobile friendly test. Google’s tool will recommend improvements that you should to make on your website. - Do a search
Another method to check if your site is mobile-friendly is by just doing a Google search on your mobile device. If you search for your website on a tablet or smartphone, you will hopefully see that the search result gets a “Mobile-friendly” label. The label will appear right under the url; if you see it, you are set, if not, you have work to do.
- Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test
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- Speed up your site
Internet connection on mobile devices is not as fast as a cable connection – yet. Since there aren’t 4G signals everywhere, some people may be loading your website over a 3G connection.For that reason, you need your website to load quickly. One source that can help you speed up your site would be Google’s Pagespeed. It will analyze the performance of your website and provides suggestions to make them faster. - Check and check again
It is a good idea to monitor how your website ranks now and after the new algorithm is in place. You should also check how your website ranks on non-mobile devices. Google has said that a site could be downgraded across the board. So, if your site isn’t mobile-friendly and drops in a mobile search, it may also drop in desktop ranking as well. - Test, a lot
If you are making changes to your website, you have to test your site, a lot. You have to test it on several types of phones, tablets and computers. All of these devices have different screen sizes and your website will view slightly different on each one. Don’t test your site once and assume it looks good. Also, keep in mind, it is not the best idea to create a separate website for just mobile visitors. One of the main reasons you want to avoid this approach is because updating your main site won’t appear on your mobile site; you’ll have to update twice.
- Speed up your site
If you still don’t have a responsive / mobile-friendly website, you need to get on it, fast! Having a responsive website is almost necessary now because more and more people browse or shop online on their mobile devices. A Google survey from 2012 showed that 48% of users say they feel frustrated and annoyed when they get to a website that’s not mobile-friendly. If your website isn’t mobile-friendly, you’re losing business.
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