Test Your Site for Google Mobilegeddon Compatibility
We can’t deny the fact that we are moving towards a more mobile-oriented lifestyle when it come to using the internet. When faced with a question, it has become natural for people to whip out their smartphones and “Google” for the answer. More and more people are browsing the web on their phones rather than using computers. Undoubtedly, we want our websites to be optimized for search engines whether users are searching for us on their phones or computers. So what steps should we take to address the Mobilegeddon issue?
Last April 2015, Google made major changes to their mobile search results by introducing Mobilegeddon. In this update, the order of search results in mobile browsers is different to those of desktop searches. Through Mobilegeddon, Google aims to enhance and improve the searching experience of mobile users.
Is it possible for Mobilegeddon to impact the ranking of some of sites? Yes. Based on analytics of a website that Project Assistant handled, 20-40% of traffic came from mobile devices thus, more referrals or visitors to the sites came from mobile users.
Here’s an example of the search result when using a mobile browser:
How To Stay On Top of The Mobilegeddon Changes
- Ensure that Image files, JavaScript and CSS can be crawled by Googlebot and the robots.txt should not block important pages of the site.
- All the contents of the site must be viewable and playable. Use HTML5 standards for animation and embed videos that can be played on all mobile devices. It would be a shame to lose traffic over something as simple as a video not playing.
- Use responsive web design that displays the same content when the site is viewed on a desktop or smartphone. This way, your site is optimized for viewing and looks great on a variety of devices with different screen sizes.
- It is essential that a mobile-friendly site loads quickly to avoid user frustration. Check the website using Google PageSpeed Insights and fix issues that cause slow page loading. Slow page load is most commonly caused by the image downloads within the web page. Optimizing the use of images by compressing them improves website performance
- Do a Mobilegeddon Google Test. Use Google Developers Mobile-Friendly Test to analyze whether the site is affected by the Mobilegeddon update. See example below.
Here’s a sample Mobile View of how our site looked previously:
How Do We Look At The Mobilegeddon Changes?
For us at Project Assistant, Mobilegeddon is not something we should be worried about. Don’t hesitate. This is an opportunity for local business to get ahead in search results. However, the website should initially achieve its objectives to exceed user expectations in terms of how they interact with the site. This means you have to make sure your functionality and design is mobile-friendly by using responsive web design.
In building websites, our major priority is building a relationship with the users of the site. Combined with maintaining and establishing branding in all online publications, we are able to foster loyalty in existing customers and new site visitors.
