Back in April 2015, Google started to adjust their search results based on whether their users (you and I) performed the search on their smartphone or tablet (mobile devices), or on a laptop or a desktop computer (traditional).
Here are two examples of how Google mobile-friendly test results look like for non compliant websites of our clients as they have been built before smartphones or tablets came to the market.
However, the same sites are still doing great in Google’s desktop test.
This latest Google move is in the direct response that research shows that today already about 50% of online activity happens on mobile devices. Since those have much lower screen resolutions and size, the way a website is coded affects how well it displays on these devices.
Two reasons why you should care:
- The mobile devices usage is only going to get higher so in order to keep attention of the people that land on your website you should provide them with a user friendly experience, right now meaning “mobile-friendly”. If they have to span sideways or zoom in a lot to navigate your site they are leaving quickly.
- Google now pushes mobile-friendly websites higher in their rankings if the search came from a mobile device. Or in other words, drops the non-friendly ones lower. Pretty big deal, eh?
Google mobile-friendly test
Good news is that Google created a simple tool to help website owners to test whether their site complies with their mobile-friendly guidelines.
To test your site, go here – https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/ – and type in the URL of your site.
How did your website do?
If it did similar to the examples above then you might want to get in touch with us to prevent loosing the traffic you worked hard (or paid for) to get to your site.
At the very least, you can take a look inside your Google Analytics to find out how much traffic comes to you from mobile devices and decide based on that for now.