If your website is friendly with mobile devices, it’ll better serve both search engines and users alike. As we know, recent Google algorithm changes now use mobile friendliness as a ranking signal, giving mobile-friendly web pages priority in mobile search results. The initial mobile-friendly update back in spring of 2015 wasn’t as impactful as initially anticipated, but new updates in 2016 present the potential for a much greater impact on non-mobile-friendly websites.
Google’s Enhanced Mobile-Friendly Test
Google is now offering an enhanced Mobile-Friendly Test, a superior diagnostics tool to the original one. It is simple, clean and easy to use, and also works well on a mobile device (go figure). Google will continue to enhance this new tool and anticipates that it will eventually replace the old one. The tool can be accessed directly at https://search.google.com/search-console/mobile-friendly or by visiting your Google Search Console (formerly Webmaster Tools) Mobile Usability Report.
Just drop your URL into the “Enter a URL” bar at the top, hit enter and wait for Google to work its magic. You’ll see a green “This page is mobile-friendly” notice if there are no issues. However, if the web page does not meet Google’s mobile-friendly requirements, a list of specific issues will appear in red, along with some links to Google tips to help you learn how to repair the issues.
Mobile-Friendly Websites – A Timely Must Have
Google updates aside, your users are likely evolving along with the trend of increasing mobile adoption rates. You generally have only seconds to capture a user’s attention on your website. If they have to spend time pinching and scrolling the site to find the information they want while on a mobile device, they may be long gone before they ever reach their end goal for visiting your site in the first place.
You have options to bring your website into the current mobile era, which we have outlined in our Google Mobile-Friendly Update Not So Friendly to Your Website? blog post, such as Responsive Design, Dynamic Servicing and Separate URLs/Microsites.
