Google search engine ranking now includes your mobile website readiness
On April 21st 2015 Google updated the search ranking algorithm to include whether a website is mobile friendly or not. Along with other factors you are now ranked on how your website looks on a mobile so there is a danger that if you are not mobile friendly then you will lose Google ranking.
Starting April 21, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal.
This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results.
So who does it affect?
Your mobile friendly score only comes into play on mobile searches. It will not affect any ranking on desktop searches. If mobile searches are important to you, and they should be as more and more people are using their mobile for internet searches, then you should make sure you are compliant. It is possible that even if your content is more relevant to a search request you might be relegate behind other sites that are viewable on mobile phones.
So are You Mobile Friendly?
One way to check is to browse your site on a mobile. If you are having to scroll horozontally then most likely your website is not optimized to run on a mobile. Google also have a Google Mobile Friendly test that tells you whether they consider you mobile friendly or not.
Enter your website address into the web page url box. Google will then do a quick analysis and tell you your results.
Another easy test to see if you are mobile friendly is to search for your website in Google when you are on your smartphone. You will see “Mobile Friendly” next to your results if you are. Remember to do this when you on your phone as it won’t work when searching on your laptop.
Your Google Webmasters account also has a section on Mobile Usability where you can see a list of pages that are not mobile friendly and the reasons why.
So what if You are NOT Mobile Friendly?
You don’t have to do anything about it but if you fail to rank well on Google it will impact your website traffic. My suggestion would be to do something about it as soon as possible, even if you don’t see Google as your main source of traffic.. Talk to your developer to find out what is the best solution for your website.
What you can do if you are a WordPress user
If you use WordPress (if not why not?) then see if your theme has a responsive version that you can upgrade to. There are also plugins out there that will make the switch to mobile friendliness a lot easier. One I have often used is WP Touch which enables a simple mobile friendly theme that you can adjust easily.
Responsive websites are mobile friendly as they react to the size of the screen they are being viewed on and resize the content to display in a user friendly way.
