Is your website mobile friendly? Today we’re bringing you an update from Google and a new tool they have that tests your website’s speed and mobile friendliness.
Previously, we have written about mobile SEO and with the statistics back in 2015 showing mobile searches have overtaken desktop searches, it’s imperative that your website is mobile friendly and fast!
Here’s a question for you. When was the last time you searched for something on Google on your mobile, clicked on a link and went to a website that looked like this?
At a guess, you wouldn’t have stayed long on the site because you would have to use your thumb and forefinger to resize the website on your mobile so you could not only read the information, but be able to click on certain elements, like a phone number. Can you recall the last time somebody said that was fun to do? It’s for this very reason that Google introduced a new mobile algorithm back in April, 2015. The update meant that websites that weren’t mobile friendly would be penalised in organic searches on mobile devices.
And here’s an interesting stat from Google around what happens when a website isn’t mobile friendly
What does mobile friendly look like on a Google search.
If you take a look at the example below, you can see how SEO Melbourne have appeared in the 1st organic rankings with a “mobile-friendly” tag for the term “SEO Melbourne”.
Being mobile friendly is only one aspect of the user experience needs to be for your mobile visitors.
Site speed is a big factor that Google looks for when working out what websites to show in the organic search results. Why is speed important? Again, think back to a time when you’ve opened a slow loading website on your phone. Did you wait? Or did you go back to the search results and open another website?
Google starts taking note of this type of interaction and if it notices that people are closing a slow loading website before it completely opens, then they start to push that website down the rankings. That’s why Google’s new mobile and site speed tester is a great tool for you to use to evaluate your website.
Using the same website from the first mobile example in this blog post, SEO Melbourne ran that website through Google’s new tool. Here are the results.
It’s safe to say that when the numbers are in red, then Google aren’t too happy with your website. Especially when they say “poor” underneath.
There is light at the end of the darkened, non-mobile friendly tunnel though and that is that Google will email you a detail report that highlights where the gaps are and what your web developer can do to fix those gaps. All you have to do is click on the “GET MY FREE REPORT” button and they will deliver the report to your desktop.
Speaking of desktop, here’s another stat from Google around website usage on desktops / laptops.
That’s why speed is important. With so much information available to internet users, the moment a website doesn’t load quickly, people are closing down slow sites and opening up a new site to find the information that they need.
How does your website fair in the test?
If you need to know more about mobile SEO, contact SEO Company Melbourne. We provide professional and proven SEO results, as well as our content that covers anything and everything SEO
