Has your website survived mobilegeddon?

Why Google’s latest update is making mobile searches easier It’s not news that we’re in love with our smartphones. Back in June 2013, Mobile Marketing quoted research from Deloitte showing that seven in 10 people in the UK owned a smartphone.  Then, in December 2013, Business Insider made the staggering claim that by the end of 2013 there would be two smartphones for every nine people on earth. And, depending on which study you look at, mobile searches are said to account for anything from 25 to 70 per cent of searches online. Conclusion? A lot of people are searching for stuff online from a mobile, and that’s not about to change anytime soon. So why does that matter to Google? Well, like it or hate it, Google is the self-styled cyber police. And now the search engine giant has taken pity on mobile users worldwide who are stabbing at smartphones with their fat fingers, trying to search online. Google is specifically targeting websites where the text is ‘too small to read’ (causing humans to squint), the links are ‘too close together’ (our chubby human digits can’t tap them easily) and sites that are too wide for the screen. Because having to scroll horizontally is A Bad Thing.  And if you don’t whip your website into shape and make it mobile friendly? Google will shoot your mobile rankings down in flames. But don’t fret. The search engine hasn’t left you alone to struggle with this problem. It has provided tools.

Test your website for ‘mobile friendliness’

The quickest way to check which pages of your site are mobile friendly is to use Google’s testing tool. Type in the URLs that you want to test (each page of your website can be entered separately), wait a few seconds and you’ll have your answer. Ideally, you’ll get this cheerleader type message from Google:

And if your website isn’t so mobile-friendly? The happy green writing changes to red (in case you’ve not appreciated the seriousness of the situation) and your site is labelled ‘Not mobile-friendly’. Currently most sites seem to be not making the mark because of text that is too small to read, links too close together and because the mobile viewport is ‘not set’. The viewport determines how a webpage shows up on a mobile device, and if it hasn’t been ‘set’, then the page will be displayed to fit a desktop screen, typically much wider than a mobile screen. This will force readers to scroll horizontally which Google thinks provides a substandard viewing experience for users.

What to do if your website isn’t ‘mobile-friendly’?

Google has provided a range of resources to help you update your website and make it responsive (mobile friendly). You’ll be able to follow the links from the testing tool and get help from its guide to creating mobile friendly websites. But if you’re hyperventilating at this point because you’ve just discovered your website isn’t mobile friendly, here’s some comfort. At the time of writing, even some of the big names in SEO haven’t made their websites mobile friendly. (We’re looking at you Moz.com.) So what’s that all about? Online chatter seems to suggest that Moz’s current lack of mobile-friendliness could be due to the fact that most of their traffic doesn’t come from mobiles. And a laid-back response from Moz that appeared recently, basically said, ‘Yeah, it’s all in hand, but there’s no huge rush’. If only a small percentage of your traffic comes from mobiles, you might not need to panic either. The way to get the breakdown of your traffic is to dig into the analytics for your website. Look under Audience>Mobile>Overview and you’ll be able to see which percentage of your traffic comes from a mobile device. If the majority of your traffic is from a desktop, there may not be such a rush to call your web designer. However, few businesses are happy to gamble on the impact of Google’s algorithm changes, so you might still want to add a mobile friendly update to your To Do list.

What next for the world wide web?

Despite all the online hype and the thrilling Mobilegeddon talk, Google’s latest update hasn’t caused a worldwide upset just yet. In fact, the friendly folk who write Google Australia are positively reassuring, stating on 22 April: “mobile-friendliness is just one of 200 signals that we use to determine the ranking of results”, also adding, “sites that aren’t as mobile-friendly as they could be won’t disappear. In fact, they may still rank highly if they contain great content that people really want.” So the sensible take-home message about Google’s mobile friendly update is, yes it’s worth taking the change seriously and planning to take action if you need to. But losing sleep over the responsiveness of your website? There’s no need for that just yet.]]>