Google Mobile Update Puts More Mobile Friendly Websites In Search Results.
Thanks to advances in processor miniaturisation, mobile smartphones are capable of rendering websites quickly, that is if the site itself is ‘mobile friendly’. More people every year are using smart phones to search the web, for information, find services and to buy products.
In Australia, 90% of people with smartphones search for local information on their smartphone. Interestingly, 75% of mobile searches occur at home or at work, places where desktop computers laptops and tablets are likely to be present.
The Google Mobile Update launched on April 22, 2015 expands the use of ‘mobile friendliness’ as a ranking signal and will affect searches made on smartphones in all languages world wide. The result will have a major impact on search results, with users finding it easier to see relevant, high quality results in SERPs that have been optimised for smartphones.
No. This update has no effect on searches from any other device other than from smart phones.
The change affects pages. In theory, if five pages of your website are friendly to smartphones, but the rest aren’t, only the five mobile friendly pages will be positively impacted.
In practice, this is unlikely because your website should be coded ‘globally’ for ‘responsiveness’ to all screen sizes. In other words all pages will or wont be mobile friendly.
From analysing our clients website traffic on all devices, 70% of all visitors are using smartphones. 20% are using tablets or laptops and 10% are desktop.
Some clients experience even higher volumes of traffic coming from smart phones, some less. It does differ based on the category and average age of clientele.
It’s also worth noting these figures are constantly changing, with an increase in smart phone use year on year.
Google Mobile Friendly 2 Update (May 12, 2016)
Just more than a year after the original ‘mobile update’, Google rolled out another ranking signal boost to benefit ‘mobile friendly websites’ on ‘mobile search’. Since the majority of sites we track are already responsive to all screen sizes and devices, the impact of the latest update was small, with a few competitors changing places below our clients ranked pages.
Mobile-First Index Roll-out (March 26, 2018)
While not a ‘mobile update’, Google announced ‘Rolling out mobile-first indexing’ was happening, after testing for a year and a half. The focus was on how Google gathered content, text, images and video, not about how the content itself ranked.
Note Google has since updated the above post with: ‘Mobile-first indexing best practices’
This is not how responsive websites are meant to be. The same content should be shown but laid out differently, depending on the size of the screen.
After A New Website Design That Ranks?
Whether you’re looking at upgrading or starting from scratch, provide services or have products you’d like to sell online, Thinking IT can design a stunning website for your business, make sure it’s mobile friendly & ranks high on all search engine result pages (SERPs).
After discussing your goals and analysing what you require, Nigel will be able to let you know exactly what the costs will be to meet your unique needs.
At Thinking IT, we can handle everything to make your online presence a success. From photography & graphic design services to copywriting your pages & website’s blog, set up automated email campaigns & look after your social media or PPC marketing.
