Mobile is the new desktop. Well, sort of.
More and more people are using their mobiles to view websites. Having a mobile-friendly website gives a better user experience, which is important for converting prospects on your website.
But perhaps more importantly, Google prefers mobile-friendly websites and will rank them higher in mobile search results. Here’s what you need to know about Google’s mobile-friendly algorithm:
The algorithm assesses on a page-by-page basis
The algorithm analyses mobile compatibility on a page-by-page basis, rather than a website-wide basis. If your site has some pages that are optimized for mobile and some that are not, Google will assess them separately and promote the pages that are optimized.
There are over 200 different factors that determine ranking including: small font sizes, whether your buttons are too close together, readability of content and whether the browser adjusts the page dimensions to suit the device accessing the website.
Your page is either mobile-friendly or not
The algorithm is an on-or-off algorithm, this means that it does not assess how mobile-friendly your pages are, you cannot be 50% or 70% mobile-friendly, you are either mobile-friendly or you are not.
The algorithm operates in real-time
The algorithm runs in real-time, this means that as soon as your site becomes mobile-friendly, Google will pick up on the change, and you should start to benefit from the new algorithm fairly quickly.
How do you know if your website is mobile-friendly?
You can assess whether your site is mobile friendly by using Google’s mobile friendly test. This test is not without its flaws, but is a useful gauge of a site’s mobile performance.
Also, the mobile usability reports in Google Webmasters Tools will show you common usability issues with your mobile site.
If 73% of Australians using their mobile phones to access the Internet wasn’t incentive enough to go mobile-friendly, this algorithm makes the change a necessity.
So if your site is not mobile-friendly, you better get to work now, because your mobile traffic is at risk.
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