Is it even a real question? Without a doubt, Google wants to be your interface for queries and provide the fastest possible search results. If Google is the most used search engine, a mobile screen has been the most used device for millennia. The varying sizes of device screens have continually challenged quality website developers to make their websites and software applications more user-friendly.
Google ranks mobile-ready websites higher
What’s new is that Google is releasing a new algorithm update; ensuring that websites are optimized to work on mobile screens. Updating the mobile-friendly algorithm will reach websites that don’t respond to different screen sizes or take longer to load on different screen sizes. In short, Google wants your website to be mobile-friendly.
Websites refined for better performance on mobile devices will rank higher, effective immediately (April 21). In addition, relevant content from mobile applications will also be available through Google searches.
It’s no secret that Google prefers websites with White Hat SEO strategies in place. This includes page titles, alternative text, meta descriptions of all pages, links, images and other content. Websites that load in 1 to 3 seconds are preferred. But now only mobile-friendly websites will be listed in all mobile searches.
You can check for yourself whether the pages of your website are mobile-friendly or not by using the free Google Webmaster tool. This tool will give you a brief analysis and advice on what is needed to make your website compliant with the new update.
Here is a basic list of acceptable ways to make your website mobile friendly:
- Create a separate website only for mobile devices
The oldest way that still works is by creating a separate mobile website. This is how the early adopters of mobile optimization did things; a separate m.domain.com is created and operates with the subset of content made available to the domain. - Detect and deliver different code by Dynamic Serving
Another method often used is dynamic serving. Here, the URL remains the same, but the HTML changes. In this method, upon detecting the kind of device the viewer is using, the web page dynamically offers the appropriate view. - Design your site to be “Responsive” – usually the BEST approach
The most suitable solution is switching to a responsive design. This involves optimizing the styling features of the website in such a way that you don’t have to create multiple websites for different devices and the single website just adapts to the size of the screen.
However, to make your website responsive, you need to change a lot of style options from both the back and the front. This can involve a lot of design and redesign depending on the size of your website. It is not only an expensive affair, but a lengthy one, although the results are almost always more fruitful.
It’s the most efficient and effective way to guarantee mobile usability on all screens. A consistent experience welcomes the user with increased efficiency. Load time and performance are also faster. The advantage here is that, since it does not create two copies of the same website, there is no multiplicity of data. This makes it easier for Google crawlers to manage, which helps Google index more content faster. Nor do the marketers who manage the page have to work harder. Most importantly, the viewer has only one URL to view and the website adapts as the user changes screens; the transitions are fluid. Constantly improving user interfaces and engaging user experiences are now focused on responsive designs.
This new update from Google is a positive sign for users and businesses, and will only hurt websites that haven’t yet realized that mobile is the future. Faster and more relevant search results will certainly help improve conversions. Over the next few days, there will be more such changes, from other search engines included, focusing on improving the user experience on mobile devices and penalizing web pages not optimized for mobile usability .
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