Are you Mobile Friendly? – Site Health Check

Don’t think a mobile friendly site is important to your business?  You may want to think again. It is well known that Millennials love to shop on mobile, and they are not alone. Today, one in every four mobile shoppers is over the age of 55. B2C businesses can no longer assume that their customers prefer desktops; mobile use is now nearly universal with 80% of internet users owning a smartphone.

What if you run B2B site? Mobile devices are as popular in the business world as they are at home.  More and more, buyers expect sites to be mobile friendly.  Even among Baby Boomers, 60% say that their mobile device is essential to their work.

In 2018, people expect a seamless experience.  They want to browse your site on their phone, tablet, or desktop and experience the same quality and content. If your mobile site has text that’s too small or is too hard to navigate, they may never come back on any device.

In a 2015 algorithm update popularly known as “Mobilegeddon,” Google increased the importance of mobile friendliness as a ranking signal.  This update impacted mobile search as well as all other search results and was calculated by page, not web site.  In May 2016, the importance of this ranking signal was strengthened further in another update. 

Though it did not have the catastrophic effect that some feared, it did spur site owners to upgrade their mobile experience. Those who did were probably glad they made the change.  In October 2016, for the first time more uses accessed the internet through a mobile device than through a traditional desktop.  The age of mobile had officially arrived.

Does Google consider your site to be mobile friendly?  You can test individual pages on Google’s mobile friendly test page.  To check your full site, however, Google Search Console (formerly know as Webmaster Tools) is a great resource. Go to Search Traffic -> Mobile Usability to see any problems Google has found on your site.

If you recently updated your mobile site, check Google Search Console for any pages Google still sees as a problem. You can submit the page to Google after they are fixed, hopefully improving your search rankings!

The best test is on a real device. Browse your site on your phone, both on WiFi and cellular. Ask your friends and co-workers to check on their phones as well and ask them a few questions. Is anything hard to read? Could you navigate easily? Was the site fast enough? A slow site could easily pass Google’s tests but fail with actual users.

What do you do if your site is not as mobile friendly as you thought? If you use a CMS platform, that could involve upgrading to a new theme, preferably with responsive design.  Some sites may only need a few tweaks to dramatically improve user experience.  If you need help upgrading your site, please contact our Web Development team.  We are happy to help.