If your site does not look good, does not display content, or is not easy to use on a mobile phone, it may drop out of Google’s ranking beginning April 21st, 2015.
It may be news to you that Google is implementing a major new search algorithm update on April 21st, 2015 purported to have a “significant impact in [Google’s] search results”. This change will affect your web site in Google’s mobile search results immediately. If your site is considered “mobile-friendly” then your site will rank higher than others when a user searches from a mobile phone. If your site is considered “not mobile-friendly” then your site will rank lower, or not at all. This is a huge deal, and the tip of a major iceberg coming your way.
As a Google partner, we received some advance notice of these changes, and nearly all of our client’s sites have been mobile-friendly since they were implemented. However, we find every day that some people have not yet heard about the update Google is making. Fortunately, Google has not made it a mystery what they consider to be mobile-friendly, and with somewhere between 30 and 50% of your site traffic coming from a mobile phone and increasing, you need to take action now. Thus, we present the following things you should be aware of.
Your site must render in a mobile phone
That means that your site must be viewable, in all its glory, in a mobile phone browser. If content is scaled off the page, and you require people to pinch and zoom down, your site is not mobile-friendly. If you use Flash, or a technology that a mobile phone cannot display, your site is not mobile-friendly.
Your site must scale to the viewport
This was mentioned briefly in the above note about rendering, but is worth noting more – your site must scale to the size device that it is displaying on. A web site that is wide in a desktop window, and remains wide in a mobile phone, requiring users to pinch and zoom in, is not mobile-friendly. The web site should scale down automatically, and fit completely in the window without any left-to-right scrolling.
So, what’s a viewport? The viewport is the window of content that can be viewed on the device. The viewport size (width and height) varies from device-to-device, and it’s important that your content scales appropriately. Check out the following example. Note how the content scales down in a the mobile device – it becomes a different view of the same information that was on the “normal” desktop view. This functionality can be enabled through “Responsive Design” or through serving different content to mobile devices. That’s a more involved discussion for another time, but both ways should have the effect of this:
Your site must be usable on a mobile phone
Mobile users must use fingers to click on links. If links are too close together, the site is not considered usable. Google tests to check the location of each clickable element on a page, and if it determines that the elements are too close together for an easy finger touch, your site may be penalized.
It’s not enough to test on a desktop device
Scaling your browser down on a desktop device is not a valid way of testing mobile usability. Your desktop computer has the capability of displaying things that your mobile device cannot. The most notable type of element is Flash. Flash content will not display in your Apple or Android device.
What you need to do now:
First, contact us for a Mobile Usability Test in testing your web site, or use Google’s mobile usability online tool.
You can also check your site’s mobile-friendliness in Google’s Webmaster Tools, or by searching for your site in Google from a mobile phone. If Google displays “Mobile-Friendly” next to your site’s link, then you’re set. If Google doesn’t, you run the risk of a competitor’s mobile-friendly site over-taking yours.
Then, take action – correct the issues, and don’t needlessly sacrifice your mobile search rankings. Mobile devices are an increasingly large part of your web site’s traffic, and it is important to be found in the search results on mobile browsers.
April 21st, 2015 will come – and your site needs to be ready. We’re not exactly sure how the rankings will shuffle based on these upcoming changes, and our guess is that it’s just the beginning of something big. It won’t be long, and sites that are not mobile-friendly may just drop from the rankings altogether.
Ready to take action? Contact us or call (815) 516-0500.
Jason Todd