Google have now released their new algorithm update that will give ranking boosts to those E-commerce sites that are ‘mobile friendly’.
It’s the day of the release and it’s probably a good idea to ensure that your website is mobile friendly – unfortunately if you don’t take action, your website will most likely see a reduction in site visits and conversions.
Why is it important?
Google use complex algorithms to provide you, the user, with an even easier experience. They seek out websites containing the keywords provided and then list the highest ranking websites for you.
The ranking process consists of multiple different factors – this includes how many times a keyword is used on the website (within the content). Obviously, the higher ranked pages will be that which appear at the top of your search page, providing you with the most appropriate, most relative links to your search.
What’s happening?
As of today, there will be another factor that E-commerce websites are going have to consider if they want to reach the top of that ranking list. Google are making it somewhat a necessity that your website is ‘mobile friendly’ because if not, you will more than likely suffer from a lack of website visits due to not being ranked high enough on the search engine lists.
The mobile friendly algorithm has been said to be more effective and have more of an impact than the previous, Panda and Penguin algorithms but it is unsure of what was meant by this statement. Read more here.
When should I have done this?
You might be unsure on when you should make your website ‘mobile friendly’ or you might even be worried that you’re too late – you’re not! Google’s algorithms run in real-time. You can change it whenever really (obviously the sooner the better – less work later on!) and as soon as you have implemented the changes and Google’s web crawlers pick up on it, you should start to benefit from the update.
How long will it take before Google notices?
This links to the point I made above. Googlebots will crawl an individual page on your website and it will determine whether your website is mobile friendly or not, simple as that. There is no scope with mobile friendliness, it is or it isn’t. If you are unsure if the site itself is mobile friendly you can carry out a simple test here.
If you fail the crawl for whatever reasons once the full release is out then you should go about finding the problem, fixing it and then the algorithm will re-evaluate each individual page again the next time it is crawling on your website. If for example, you fixed an issue today and then the Googlebot was to crawl through your pages tomorrow, then the affected pages would be tested again and given a pass or fail outcome.