Now that the newest and latest Google algorithm has hit, you are well aware of how important mobile compatibility is towards your SEO ranking. If you did indeed hear about Google’s announcement in June of 2013, you anticipated mobile ranking to affect your business’ SEO. So if you haven’t jumped ship with your non mobile friendly site, now is the time to do it, that is if you care about improving your ranking on Google search pages.
In July of 2014, Google made the second announcement towards implementing mobile-friendly websites and its algorithm to detect pages that would not work on mobile devices. If this change wasn’t enough, Google made an additional warning to businesses saying that they would notify its web device users and mark mobile-friendly websites positively. For sites that wouldn’t prove mobile compatibility, Google would penalize and mark negatively.
During this time, Google wants to notify its users and forewarn them regarding whether a site is mobile friendly or not. By Googlebot’s standards, a site is considered mobile friendly if it meets the following requirements:
- Text that is readable without zooming in
- Links that are placed far apart enough so the right one can easily be tapped
- An avoidance of software such as Flash that is not common on mobile devices
- Content that is scaled to the device’s screen size so users do not have to scroll horizontally or zoom
In February of 2015, Google stated an important step towards mobile-user implementation by saying, “information from indexed apps would be a factor for signed-in users who have the app installed.”
Finally, in April 2015, the latest algorithm change hit. With that, Google expanded their use of “mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal.”
This means that Google’s communication with users entails relaying to them whether your site is mobile responsive or not. This information is then incorporated into Google’s ranking algorithm where it’s value for mobile friendly content will stay high in quality as well as optimized in its searches.
Want to Find Out What You Lose Not Becoming Mobile Friendly?
If you are implementing an ecommerce initiative on your site, converting it to mobile friendliness can preserve your sales, if not increase them. For those who are using their mobile devices more frequently, their experience browsing your site will be much more favorable and continue to attract further consumers.
You could also risk losing a great deal of mobile-based traffic to your site. You can check to see if this has happened by looking into your Google Analytics and seeing if the searches to your site have plummeted.
There is at least one good thing to know about Google’s latest algorithm and that is how each URL/page is seen as mobile friendly, not the website as a whole. Your website’s inner pages are just as important to check in the mobile friendly test as your home page.
To see if your site is mobile compatible, try entering your business URL into Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test.
At Nova Advertising, we offer sophisticated, effective, and user friendly sites that are also mobile receptive. If interested in receiving a free mockup, click here.