It’s a given that search engine algorithms will always be changing. This makes site optimization for improved rankings an exciting (yet uncertain) process.
I’ve seen these changes cause frustration among business owners and webmasters who want to stay ahead of the curve to maintain their hard-earned rankings.
But you don’t have to live in fear of every new update that comes your way.
Understanding Google’s Mobile-Friendly Update
Google’s mobile-friendly update is an algorithm that was launched in April of this year and was set to roll out over time. It works on a real-time and page-by-page basis, which offers a number of benefits for webmasters looking to optimize their mobile rankings.
The mobile-friendly update has caused many businesses to worry about how their sites will fare in light of the new update.
But it’s important to remember that there are hundreds of factors that contribute to your site’s rankings. User experience and other attributes still influence how Google and other search engines rank your site.
Real-Time and Page-by-Page
Google’s mobile-friendly update works in real-time. This means that the changes you need to make to optimize your site for mobile can be done at any time.
Google applies positive ranking scores when it crawls and indexes a given page, which prevents the need for having to wait until the next update is released.
The algorithm also applies its criteria to a site’s pages on an individual basis. You won’t need to make changes to your entire site if you don’t need to. Only those pages that are targeted to mobile users can be updated while still benefiting from the algorithm’s rankings.
Both of these characteristics make this update an easier pill for webmasters to swallow.
Rather than scramble to keep up with the changes and avoid losing their rankings, business owners can take a more strategic and less resource-intensive approach to optimizing their sites for mobile.
Does Your Site Make the Mobile Grade?
With Google’s mobile-friendly update, your site is ranked as either mobile-friendly or not. The question isn’t how mobile-friendly you are; it’s whether you’re mobile-friendly at all.
Google provides a mobile-friendly testing tool for webmasters to determine if their site passes. Elements such as font size, readability, and layout all contribute to your mobile-friendly ranking.
What to Do to Meet the Mobile-Friendly Criteria
The first step in optimizing your site for Google’s mobile-friendly update is to evaluate it using the mobile-friendly testing tool. You can also search for the mobile-friendly label in the live search results.
The testing tool lets you know if your site meets the criteria. It may also provide recommendations that make it easy for webmasters to take the right steps as quickly as possible.
Googlebot, the search engine’s site-crawling bot, will re-crawl your site and index its pages accordingly once you’ve made the necessary changes. Webmasters can also use the Fetch as Google tool to expedite the indexing of updated site pages.
It’s also important that you allow for the crawling of all image, CSS, and JavaScript resources for a given page. This lets Google assess the mobile-friendly attributes of your site through proper rendering and indexing.
Google’s mobile-friendly update is a critical one for today’s online businesses. But keep in mind that there are many factors that work together to achieve higher rankings and gain greater visibility for your business.
Mobile-friendly is simply one piece of the site optimization puzzle.
Google still weighs the user intent heavily when providing search results. High-quality content should always be a priority. But understanding the new mobile-friendly update and what it takes to optimize your page accordingly will keep you at the top of your search results.
We’ve helped businesses like yours overcome the challenges related to Google’s algorithm updates. You can use the comments section below if you have any questions on how to make your site mobile-friendly.
We’ll provide the information that will help you achieve and maintain the rankings that consistently grow your business.
