What are mobile-friendly updates for SEO?

Google announced a mobile friendly update in 2015 that is called Mobilegeddon. Google gave the following reason for this update:

“When it comes to search on mobile devices, users should get the most relevant and timely results, no matter if the information lives on mobile-friendly web pages or apps.”

After some time Google gave three main points regarding this update:

• This update will only affect the search ranking on mobile devices.
• It will affect search results in all languages globally.
• This update applies to individual pages not the full website.

Google goes mobile first

Main purpose of this update was to improve the user experience. This update was not about the organic search. It was about responding to consumer behavior which was trending in the direction of  mobile.

The question is why Google is crazy about user experience? The answer is because the bulk of their revenue still comes from paid ads. They want to provide the best experience possible so people keep clicking on them and funding their free lunches and robotic dreams.

 What does Google consider to be a mobile device?

Mobile-friendliness is the main focus of this update. Google separates mobile devices into four-device category:

• Smartphones: Android-devices, Iphones, or window phones. 
• Tablets: Google treats these mobile devices more like a desktop computer
• Multimedia-phones: These do not support all HTML5-standards.
• Features phones: These do support standard HTML.

Does Google have its own smartphone search-index?

Google does not have its own smartphone search-index. There is only one Google index. The process of crawling and indexing takes place in following steps:

• First crawlers crawl the internet and find the pages.
• When the crawler finds a page it indexes it to Google’s index.
• Then it checks the Google algorithms to decide which page will rank first.
• At last it displays the page or website in search engine result pages.

When a user types a search query, Google differentiates between a smartphone search and a desktop search.  The results on the search result pages come from the same search index in both cases. Depending on the device used, a different URL may be displayed as a result. 

What is the requirement for a mobile friendly website?

Google first wants to know whether the content on a page is mobile-friendly or not. For that it checks each URL individually. If it finds the mobile friendly page that has been optimized for smartphone use, then Google crawlers recognize it during crawl time and index it immediately. 

Following four criteria are crucial for mobile-friendly websites:

1. Try to avoid uncommon software on mobile devices like flash.
2. The text should be readable without zooming it.
3. The content size adapts to the screen size, so that users do not have to scroll or zoom in horizontally.
4. There is enough room between links for users to tap on the desired link without problem.

Next to these four criteria for mobile-friendly websites, you need to make sure that JavaScript, CSS, and image files are not blocked for crawl. 

Responsive design and Mobile-friendly websites

A so-called responsive web design is only a (partial) means to an end. Next to the proper scaling of the design on various mobile devices, as well as the changed arrangement of elements on the website, it also depends on other technical properties to really be “mobile-friendly”. Incorrect redirects or missing notices on where to find the mobile-friendly content are just as important to Google as the PageSpeed optimization of individual pages. 

All these points are not covered by just using responsive design. This means that, just because you have made sure that the page layout looks fine on a smartphone, it does not necessarily mean your content is thoroughly mobile-friendly.

What is mobile-usability for SEO? 

Most of the traffic comes from mobile devices. So if you want to rank high your website must be mobile-friendly and optimized for mobile-usability.

To ensure that your website is mobile-friendly, and have a smooth user experience for your mobile audience and customers, you need to do some mobile usability testing .

You can use some quick tips to make sure your website passes the mobile usability evaluation and delivers a favorable experience for your users.

• Have a single column website layout: The first step is having a single column website layout for a mobile site is necessary. As we know that a mobile screen is smaller than that of a desktop PC. You need to be aware of things like your screen and text size. 

• If you can, design different versions of your site for mobile users: Every smartphone comes with different versions. If your site has different versions and optimized for mobile users then this can save you a lot of headache in the long run.

When you optimize your site for mobile users, one of the most important you can do is to design different versions of your site for mobile users or even a specific mobile app.

Another thing is the different mobile devices have different screen adjustments and have different levels of processing power. 

Many mobile phones are also not designed to load up full web pages, unlike the most advanced smartphones. Just like Facebook and other social networking sites, you should design a scaled-down version of your site for users who don’t have the mobile application usability to load the full version.

• Design and optimize pages for both touchscreen and non touchscreen users: Worldwide mobile device usage is increasing dramatically. When it comes to mobile usability, you want to ensure a terrific user experience so that your users quickly find exactly what they’re looking for.

Touchscreen mobile devices are increasingly popular these days and they present unique opportunities for you. For one thing, touchscreen mobile applications help users to fill out a form more easily. The majority of the smartphones in use have a touchscreen user interface. They can access the internet much more quickly because of the advanced functionalities they have.

Remember that when optimizing your mobile site for touchscreen users, you should avoid adding    more than the required links on a particular page, especially when they’re too close together. That’s  because if the links are too close, it’s hard for users to click on the right one. Users commonly find themselves clicking the wrong link, and their frustration grows.

• Leverage built-in mobile functionality to make your site more valuable: You can use the built in functions and features to improve your sales and leads. When designing your mobile site, you need to consider all of the important features of effective mobile usability testing. With modern smartphones, mobile application users can easily find a particular address on a map. They don’t have to search endlessly before they can get the accurate address of a restaurant, for example. Using GPS, they can detect a business that’s close to them. With the Location-Detection functions on most modern mobile phones, customers can easily detect the nearest store locations on a map.