Webmasters beware: The rollout date for Google’s new mobile-friendly search engine algorithm is fast approaching! Beginning April 21st Google will implement changes to the algorithm it uses when ranking websites for it’s Search Engine Results Page, or SERP, this time adding mobile-friendliness to the over 200 factors it already uses.
According to internet research firm Netcraft, there are approximately 150,000,000 active websites out there and unless you want your site to get lost in the shuffle, making sure your website is mobile-friendly will keep it indexed higher on the SERP.
So how do you know if you are ready to take on this new algorithm? Google suggests you start by pulling out your smartphone and typing in your website right into their search engine. If your site meets their ranking standards, a gray colored “mobile-friendly” should appear next to your site name. No need to fret just yet if you’ve recently done some updates and those magic, gray words are still missing – it can take awhile before “mobile-friendly” shows up, not that it will affect your indexing.
Still unsure of where your website stands? Google is providing a guide for site owners at www.developers.google.com that runs webmasters through a variety of useful information to help make sure everyone has their ducks in a row. If you are uncertain if your site has a mobile-friendly design, or just want to double-check (which never hurts), you can enter in your website URL and it will be tested for mobile-friendliness. Google points out that there is no gray area here, either it is or it isn’t, and this analysis will let you know what step you need to take next.
However, something to keep in mind is that even if your website has a mobile-responsive design, it doesn’t mean you’re off the hook just yet – a good portion of sites have a poor mobile user experience and, considering that 30% of all web traffic is from a mobile device, that experience is something you as a site owner should care greatly about.
Which is why Google offers a helpful “situation & guidance” page with tons of useful links for various questions. A step-by-step guide is provided on how to customize your website so that it becomes mobile-friendly if you use a third-party webpage software, often referred to as a content management system (CMS), such as WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla. Google even gives links to over ten common CMS providers and their dedicated guides.
These guides will cover how to manually update your CMS if an automatic update hasn’t been triggered, how to make sure you have a mobile-friendly page theme, and provides a support forum for CMS users to interact with each other and review any problems users are encountering.
More of a do-it-yourselfer and want to transition your website into the mobile-friendly world on your own? There’s a page with links to all the technical details as well as a mobile SEO guide for an overview of the implementation process. And if you’re leery about making any changes on your own and would like to leave it to someone a bit more knowledgeable, Google offers guidance on working with a web developer and suggests questions you should ask to ensure a good outcome.
Website owners don’t necessarily need to give their webpage a complete overhaul in order to improve the mobile functionality of their site, though. While using a mobile device, go through your page to make sure there aren’t any faulty redirects, irrelevant cross-links, or 404 errors that may not come up on a desktop, but appear for mobile users.
Make sure your webpage doesn’t have any blocked JavaScript, CSS, or image files – you want to make sure Googlebot sees your site as a user would, so allow access to these files. Another mistake to avoid is unplayable videos or other content such as license-constrained media or media that requires Flash that may not play on mobile devices.
By following these useful tips and heeding Google’s advice, all websites should be able to make any necessary changes and progress into the mobile-friendly future.