Mobilegeddon
You may remember the promise of Mobilegeddon in 2015 and Mobilegeddon 2.0, which rolled out in May 2016, and the dire warnings of the impact that would have on your website’s Google ranking if your website was not responsive. It is difficult to measure the impact these changes have had on individual websites as, of course, search visibility relies on many factors, the responsiveness of your website being just one of them. However, the changes made by Google to their search algorithm have shown that they are committed to ensuring that the search results they offer are for websites which are responsive and can be accessed on any device.
Get Mobile Friendly
As mobile and tablet use continues to grow, it is more important than ever that websites are viewed in a consistent format on all devices. Many people use a variety of devices through the day with mobile usage more common during the late night and early morning, laptop/desktop computers having increased usage throughout the working day and tablet usage popular at night. Many users may view the same website on all three of these device types in a single day, especially as our devices are becoming more connected through personal cloud accounts and it is important to provide a consistent experience.
What does it meant to be mobile friendly?
A page is eligible to be marked as mobile friendly by Google if it meets the following criteria
- Avoids software that is not common on mobile devices, like Flash
- Uses text that is readable without zooming
- Sizes content to the screen so users don’t have to scroll horizontally or zoom
- Places links far enough apart so that the correct one can be easily tapped
If your site does not fulfil this criteria, Mobilegeddon and Mobilegeddon 2.0 may well have affected your website ranking in search. If you are not sure if your site meets the Google criteria, you can check with their simple mobile friendly site checker here.
Even if you feel that you do not rely too heavily on search engine visibility for acquisition and the changes to Google’s algorithm do not impact you, taking the above criteria as a guide is a good idea and your website users will thank you for it.
User Experience Counts
Frustration at loading times will lead to users quickly abandoning a site when accessing via mobile and poor layout, inaccessible content and difficultly accessing links are all sources of frustration and will decrease engagement and conversions. One piece research found that 52% of people said they would be less likely to re-engage with a website where they had a bad mobile experience.
A responsive website is one of a number of things that can affect your ranking in search along with other factors such as use of keywords and well written content. It is however, arguably, one of the most important for user experience as mobile use continues to increase and more and more of us are routinely accessing the web whilst we are on the move. For more advice on mobile responsiveness, SEO and what you can do to improve it - get in touch.