On April 21, 2015, Google updated its search algorithms to favour mobile-friendly websites in their search results. With usage of websites on mobile devices sky-rocketing over recent years, the underlying reason for this update was to ensure that Google continued to provide valuable and accessible content to users across both mobile, tablet and computers. If you have a website, it is now more important than ever to ensure that your site is accessible on mobile devices - but just just for the sake of Google.
A mobile-friendly website is a site that can be easily accessed and read on mobile devices. Ultimately this means that the site is built to ensure that readers can read the text, click the links and navigate the site effectively from mobile devices - often meaning that text is increased in size and that links are better suited to fingers rather than mouse clicks. As Google explained, in order for a site to be considered mobile-friendly, its text has to be readable without tapping and zooming, its tap targets need to be spaced out appropriately, and the page avoids unplayable content or horizontal scrolling. In other words, the site simply needs to be easily usable from a mobile device.
To find out what your website looks like on a mobile device, Google has released a "Mobile-Friendly Test":
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/
Despite these changes coming into effect in April, there is still time to act if your website is not mobile-friendly. And the benefits are likely to extend beyond Google rankings.
With more users than ever accessing content via mobile-devices and searching for content on the go; a mobile-friendly website can be a great way to better engage your customers/potential customers. And it may be easier than you think to update your website.
If you're looking to upgrade your website, web-application or online store to ensure that it's mobile friendly; contact us to find out how we can be of assistance. We can help you identify your requirements, assess the alternate approaches and the build a system (either a custom solution or off-the-shelf solution).
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