by Toma HabashiSilvertoad is very interested in the change to Google‘s search engine priorities. From last week, ‘mobile-friendliness’ finally became one of the major ranking factors that Google use to list websites in its searches.
Silvertoad feels that that change was inevitable and also relevant to current trends in internet usage across the world. More and more of us are upwardly mobile and rely on our phones to keep us up-to-date and informed.
In some cases, we’ve found it more of a challenge to convince clients that mobile Internet-users are a factor but this move by Google should convince naysayers that times have changed. If a company is not considering how the public views its websites then their search engine ranking will be negatively impacted. Google is essentially rewarding forward-thinking ‘tech-users’ that favour a Smartphone.
The search results are on a per-page basis, so if you were to select 10 pages to optimise, it will have a positive impact. Google does its indexing in real time so the results will be instantaneous making it a crucial tool.
Google first announced the date for the switch on their site last February (2015) to give companies time to adapt. Whilst the update will only impact mobile searchers and boost those pages in Google’s mobile search results, it is a significant ‘sea-change’. Research company eMarketer tells us that the United States had 134 million mobile users last year, about 100 million more than in 2010, if this isn’t an important factor for your business to consider, we don’t know what is!
The intent of the search query is still a very strong signal for Google to act upon so if a page with high-quality content is not mobile-friendly, it could still rank highly.
Google has a NEW mobile friendly testing tool that will show if you pass its test. You can also use the mobile usability reports within Google Webmaster Tools. This can show you missing viewport meta-tag for mobile pages and a selection of fonts that may be hard to read on mobile phones and buttons that my be too closely aligned.
Don’t have a fully responsive website? No fear! We can help! Contact our friendly customer services team at Silvertoad who can help advise you. We offer a no-obligation website health-check and SEO audit!
Call us on Tel: 0800 756 6800 email: [email protected]