Are you about to drop off Google Search rankings?

09 February 2015 by Lucie Chilton in General

Are you about to drop off Google Search rankings?

Is your website mobile friendly? Are you Sure? Because if not, you might be disappearing from Google search rankings quicker than you think.

Google recently sent out messages to non-mobile friendly site owners warning them to improve their websites or risk their search ranking disappearing from mobile searches.

Similarly, the company also took to rewarding companies with fully working mobile friendly sites. In November, Google identified websites that have a compatible desktop to mobile site and labelled each with a “mobile-friendly” tag, letting mobile users know which sites they can access from their handheld devices.

Google have now released a testing tool to find out if your site is mobile compatible and whether it meets with their standards.  

The ‘Googlebot’ as it’s been named, will award a “mobile-friendly" label if the website meets the following criteria:

  • Avoids software that is not common on mobile devices, like Flash
  • Uses text that is readable without zooming
  • Sizes content to the screen so users don't have to scroll horizontally or zoom
  • Places links far enough apart so that the correct one can be easily tapped

 Naturally our website achieved a 100% pass rate! However, if your site isn’t reaching the required result, Google provides a Webmasters Mobile Guide on how to improve.

This new move by Google simply demonstrates the radical evolution in content and consumption that has taken place in recent years.

It’s a fact that 80% of people now access website via a mobile or tablet device and long gone are the days of zooming in on illegibly small text, or sliding across the page to read the content. We applaud Google in their quest to make all websites user friendly. However, at the end of the day, if you’re serious about connecting with your customers, then ignore the mobile revolution at your peril.

Don’t be a digital dinosaur and get left behind on Google searches.