Users are accessing your company’s site via their mobile devices now more than ever. Paypal recently announced at this year’s Arizona World Usability Day that 25% of their users are accessing the company’s website on their iPhones, iPads, Android phones and other mobile gadgets. That is a huge number of users, one you probably see echoed in your own site’s analytics, which is why Paypal embarked on a full mobile-first site redesign.
Google announced today that they are tagging sites that are mobile friendly which could affect your SEO rankings.
We see these labels as a first step in helping mobile users to have a better mobile web experience. We are also experimenting with using the mobile-friendly criteria as a ranking signal.
Google has created a Mobile-Friendly Test where you can see if your (and everyone else’s) website passes the following list of criteria:
If you want to make sure that your page meets the mobile-friendly criteria:
Did your site pass the tests? If so congratulations to you and your web team! If your site failed to pass the tests you should be concerned, but it isn’t a reason to panic. Many great companies haven’t had the resources or knowledge required to make the needed changes to their sites. It requires a complete restructuring, redesign, and rebuild of a website in many cases, so it takes time and talent to accomplish.
53% of sites belonging to the top places to work in Phoenix (according to the Phoenix Business Journal) failed to pass the test. Some of the companies that failed are a little surprising.
Google is not yet ranking pages for search result placement based on the friendliness of your site on mobile devices, but it is a warning that you should prepare for the inevitable future soon.
---Medium.com
