Is Your Website Ready for Google’s Mobile-Friendly Algorithm?

Google announced launching of a new mobile friendly ranking factor to be added to their mobile search algorithm on April 21, 2015, affecting mobile searches in all languages worldwide. About 50% of all Google searches are made on mobile devices, so it was expected Google would eventually adapt their algorithms to the growth of mobile users, giving them a better user experience.

mobile-friendly algorithm

Here is an example of a Mobile Friendly website.

Webmasters have been expecting for years that they’d eventually need to increase the mobile friendliness of their sites. About 30% of consumers will abandon a site if they face any difficulty in loading or viewing a website on their mobile devices.

What does the change in Google’s algorithm mean to you in practical terms? The biggest change is the lower ranking of your website or a reward if your website is mobile friendly. Your competitor’s better mobile-optimized site will appear higher up in search results.

According to Google, there are no degrees of mobile friendliness in this algorithm, as there are about 200 different factors that determine ranking. In Google’s words, “Your website is either mobile friendly or not.” After April 21, Google’s mobile ranking factors will not only label your site as mobile-friendly, but also use that label to determine if your site should rank higher in search results.

If you're not sure if your website is ready for Google’s new algorithm, you can either test its mobile friendliness through Google’s Test page, or search for your website on your mobile device. When you search for your website on your mobile device, look for a gray mobile-friendly label in your description snippet. If you see it in the search results, it means Google considers your site mobile-friendly. If not, it means you've got work to do.

Google’s Webmaster Trends Analyst, Gary Illyes confirmed that the new algorithm is run on a page-by-page basis. That means only the pages on your website that are mobile friendly will benefit from the ranking tool. Webmasters who can’t make their websites 100% mobile friendly by the 21st of April can start by increasing the mobile friendliness of their most important pages. Since the new ranking factor will run in real-time, they can later have their websites completely fixed to meet Google’s standards of mobile friendliness and improve rankings, in case their rankings suffer any decline.

Click here for a Google guides for details on how to increase the mobile friendliness of your website, or give us a call today at (252) 715-4750 to discuss how your website will be affected by Google’s new algorithm.

Mitro Digital Marketing knew this day will come and we prepared two years ago for this change. All of the websites we built are mobile responsive. However, there are a few tweaks that are important and some websites need to be updated. Our SEO clients benefit greatly because we make those changes as they come along. We keep up with the latest updates, so you don't have to.

Get a mobile responsive website from a trust web design company on the Outer Banks, and let us help you be found through our Search Engine Optimizations strategies. Contact us to schedule a consultation.

Related Posts

Online Reviews

How Online Reviews Help Your Business Grow

If you search for company details or shop online, then you’re likely aware of what online reviews are. It’s consumer-generated content where customers share their experiences in receiving services or using products made by particular brands. This information may describe the pros and cons associated with products or the quality of customer service customers receive…
Responsive Website Design

Get Ahead with a Responsive Website Design Created by Mitro Digital Marketing

A study published by CNBC in 2019 outlined how it was expected that 72% of individuals would only use mobile to access the internet by 2025. Now that we’re quickly approaching that year, you may wonder whether those forecasts are on point. They are trending in the right direction if you take some of the…

The Importance of a Secure Website (And What HTTP and HTTPS Has To Do With It)

If you research statistics for what percentage of the population uses different internet browsers, you’ll see that most individuals use Google Chrome. Data sourced by Ars Technica captures how Google Chrome’s usership is at least 3.4 billion, whereas the next highest is Apple Safari at just over 1 billion. Research compiled by Fit Small Business…