A very good article published on the NZ Marketing Assn Site. Referencing one of the biggest changes in Google Search history - Bottom line if your website is not #MobileFriendly yo will lose traction.


Websites that aren’t mobile optimized will be penalised by Google from 21 April and the digital marketing community is buzzing with debate on best ways to adapt websites and maintain rankings.A website that is optimised for mobile is, in practice, a site that is easy to navigate on screens of all sizes, desktop, tablet and mobile phone. Being penalised by Google will mean your website will list lower on search results pages and this is not something any business online wants.

The Google deadline is signaling, in a rather dramatic way, the importance of having a mobile-friendly site and while most people working in digital marketing have been aware of the trend toward mobile for a while, now is the time to take a long hard look at your website.

Why is mobile optimisation important?

Everyone is looking to engage online audiences and with such tough competition for attention, the best way is to make your website the path of least resistance, to make it easy. User experience (or UX) is a buzzword in digital marketing, a new way to rephrase ‘thinking like your customer’. Google is ‘putting itself in the customer’s shoes’ to deliver the best search results possible. So sites that aren’t mobile friendly will be penalized come 21 April, because they are hard for customers use and that isn’t what they want.

Look at this deadline as an opportunity not a cost. Making sure your website is mobile friendly and satisfying Google will benefit your search rankings in the short term (and the long term), and maximise user experience positively impacting your bottom line.



What does mobile optimization look like?

Run a quick audit of your site pages using Google’s handy Mobile-Friendly Test Tool. This will give you a report on the factors that are penalising your website and the areas you need to improve. The easiest way and the best way to tell the difference between an optimised and non-optimised site and to get a clear idea of your user experience is to test the site.

You want to get three things right with a website to ensure it is truly optimized – mobile friendly, customer friendly and Google friendly:

• Content is easy to read and sized correctly for all devices
• Navigation is easy to use and doesn’t require extra scrolling
• Site speed, with pages that load quickly.

Balancing size, speed and layout in website design will make for an optimal user experience and improve your search engine rankings, a win-win formula! Improving these areas can make a huge difference to your website and search rankings. You should see an increase in visitors, a better click-through rate (CTR) and most importantly higher rankings in Google.

What are the different options for optimising a site?

There are three different ways to achieve a site design that adapts to the users screen size butresponsive design offers the best SEO value.

Use separate URLs – where there is a completely different mobile version of the site (and that URL will have an ‘.m’ before the ‘http’ address)

• Create a responsive web design – this uses the same code (HTML) as the standard page but there is a separate design (CSS) used to layout the site for devices.
• Or dynamic serving, where the server sends different code (HTML) and designs (CSS) on the same URL depending on which device is being used to search and the site alters the code behind the scenes.

Having all the SEO value accrued remain in a single URL is the best way to build a high-ranking site. There is also less risk of poor customer experience with responsive design when they transition from device to device or desktop. The other benefit is that it is easier to manage a single site and SEO campaign than it is to maintain two different sites. The content management system used and existing website URL structure will also determine the best way to adapt to mobile.

A mobile friendly site is a Google friendly site, will be a customer friendly site. If your site is one, it is more likely to be another and that will result in higher search rankings, a good user experience and ultimately more customers.

Blogpost content provided by Pure SEO, New Zealand’s leading Search Engine Optimisation Specialists.

If you need help search optimising your website for mobile, why not take the upcoming SEO coursewith the Marketing Association or if mobile marketing is more your thing, check out our upcoming online Mobile Marketing course