Recently there has been a lot of talk about mobile websites, Google have announced that they are making a change to their algorithm for mobile search results that will affect all non-mobile websites.
But what is considered a mobile website and what do I need to do so my website is not affected by this algorithm?
There are essentially 4 types of websites relating to mobile devices:
- The old style website which doesn’t care about mobile devices, it doesn’t fit on smaller screens and you have to pinch and zoom out to see the pages. The text is very small and the buttons are just a small.
- Next are sites that have had some coding put in place so the website fits on your mobile phone or tablet. You still need to pinch for somethings and the buttons are often too small for fat fingers. They look like the desktop version but on a smaller screen. This is often seen as a suitable fix for a mobile responsive website.
- The next one is a mobile designed website, when your website is viewed on a phone the buttons are thumb sized, the menu options are easy to navigate on a small screen (often using the hamburger icon) and images are smaller so it is quicker to load the page. Remember Google likes fast loading pages and it is now thought to be part of their main search algorithm.
- Finally the website that has be tailored for their mobile visitors. Identifying the details they are looking for and having these details near the top of the page. If having your website shared on social media is important then make sure you have the ‘share this page’ buttons easy to get to. If you are a shop or restaurant for example, somewhere people can actually visit then your location, address, click-able phone number, map and maybe Sat Nav functions might be important. Real thought on what mobile users need from your website.
Ok so now you know what needs to be done, who should you call? One word….
Ghostbusters!
…sorry couldn’t resist.
The obvious person is your website developer (or company), anyone who makes websites worth their salt will know what to do. Ask them for examples of their work to make sure and test on your own mobile device (or several if you have). If they haven’t got one to show then it’s time to find someone new as they are very behind the times!
…the biggest search engine ranking shake-up for several years…
The next question you might ask yourself is…
Is my current website already mobile friendly?
There are many tools and simulators out there which test websites for this however there is really only one you need to satisfy, and that is Google’s!
This is a link to their test, enter in your website to find out.
Google Mobile Website Test Page
If this tools says your site is not mobile ready then you need to makes some changes.
On 21st April 2015 Google will be rolling out an algorithm update which will take about a week to complete, it will affect websites that are not designed for mobile devices.
It is looking like it could be the biggest search engine ranking shake-up for several years, so expect your traffic figures to change either up or down. Of course if your website is already ready for this update your competitors might not be, you could do one of two things here:
- Let your competitors know they are just about to lose a lot visitors to their website and they should make their website mobile ready.
- Or you could just let them figure it out for themselves and you can have all their customers. It would teach them for not following Juicy SEO would it!
The algorithm update will NOT affect your website in normal desktop search results, however it is now nearly 50/50 users of the internet use mobile devices to surf, wouldn’t you be silly to ignore?!
Want to know what else is happening in the world of SEO? Head over to our latest Monthly Search Engine Optimisation 2min update!