Fix Mobility Issues! Better Google Rankings for Mobile-Optimised websites

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You might have heard about Google’s new Mobile Ranking Algorithm set to launch sometime next month – indeed Google have been sending out emails to thousands of website owners notifying them to “Fix mobile usability issues found” on their sites.

What does it all mean?

As more and more people are surfing the net on mobile devices, Google are doing their best to make the internet as mobile-friendly as possible. Google are in a very unique position to enforce the web shapes to their preference, by issuing Ranking penalties to sites that dont comply. The result in this case, is Google Search Results displayed on mobile devices will start to give slightly preferential Search Engine Rankings to pages on websites that are optimised for mobile devices. Put more simply, if I am searching for a keyword like ‘handbags’ in Google on my mobile phone, Google will give a “rank-boost” to sites that have been optimised for mobile phones. The exact amount of “boost” is not revealed, however in an age where websites owners are doing all they can to out-rank their competitors, even a slight preferential ranking or “boost” is valuable.

Will this effect all my current Google Rankings?

This algorithm update only effects rankings in Google Searches on mobile devices. Google say rankings on desktop/laptop computers will remain the same for now. If your website only has some pages which are mobile-optimised, this algorithm update only preferences those individual pages in mobile search results.

How do I know if my website pages are mobile-optimised?

Google have released an online tool you can use to check the overall mobility of a website, which you can access by clcking the link below:

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/

This tool however does not show inidividual pages. To view a report of the non-mobile-friendly pages found on your site you will need to use the ‘Mobile Usability’ tool in your Google Webmaster Tools account (https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-usability).

How do I make pages on my website optimised for mobile devices?

There are different methods of making individual webpages or entire websites mobile-optimised, but they differ depending on the type of website framework used (WordPress, Opencart, Static HTML, etc). If you are interested in discussing options for your website, feel free to get in touch today.

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