There are plenty of jokes out there about people needing to get off their phones, but you can’t deny that finding someone who isn’t attached to their mobile device in some way or another would be extremely difficult. People use these gadgets all the time to do research, shop for products and services, keep in touch with loved ones, and plenty more.
It seems pretty obvious that mobile-friendly websites would have an edge over the others then. But just how advantageous is mobile-friendliness, really? Today, we will be tackling how important it is in SEO and why you’ll want your brand to be more mobile-friendly as soon as possible.
Mobile Friendliness: A History
To understand why mobile-friendliness is an important factor in SEO, we need to learn about the history behind it.
Back when mobile-friendliness was ever a thing, most, if not all, websites were optimized for desktop. This meant that mobile users had to suffer from extremely small text, a ton of scrolling, large images and pop-ups, and other things that would undoubtedly infuriate your average viewer.
Google was then faced with a search quality issue. How were they to ensure that users were getting the best user experience possible even on their mobile devices? They couldn’t take websites off their search results for being desktop-optimized only. At the same time, however, they couldn’t just wait for all sites to become mobile-friendly.
Their response was to start rewarding those with mobile-friendly designs and ranking them higher on the search results.
Where’s the Proof of This?
The 21st of April in 2015 saw Google’s global launch of the mobile-friendly update.
Less than a year later, Google announced another memo on mobile friendliness:
These two statements alone are irrefutable evidence that mobile-friendliness does matter in SEO.
It’s important to note, however, that these updates were only meant to affect mobile search results. If you are searching for things on a desktop, mobile friendliness does not affect how high search results rank. User intent, Google emphasized, is still more important than mobile-friendliness—so even if a page with high-quality content is not mobile-friendly, it could still rank well if it has great, relevant content.
But does that mean we can afford to prioritize desktop optimization over mobile friendliness?
What Does This Mean?
The short answer to that question is no. It’s fair to say that mobile-friendliness does affect your rankings, especially since mobile devices comprise over half of the web searches today. It makes your content more easily accessible, easily navigated, and more user-friendly. Having the best content out there would be meaningless if users refuse to read it due to a lack of mobile-friendliness.
Additionally, the big bosses at Google themselves advise sites to start rolling out mobile-friendly updates here so although business websites aren’t required to have a mobile version of their website for their content to be included in Google’s search results, it is very strongly recommended.
Thus, if you want to remain on top of your game, we highly recommend upgrading your mobile-friendliness if you haven’t already. If you need help achieving this, Drive Traffic Media would be more than happy to help you out. We are an expert in web design and web hosting in Orange County and can be contacted by phone at (949) 800-6990 or by email at info@drivetrafficmedia.com.
