How to Make Your Site Mobile-Friendly in a Post-Mobilegeddon World

May 8, 2015 Mobile

For months leading up to April 21, SEO and digital marketing specialists eagerly anticipated the much talked-about Google Mobile-Friendly Update, with many anticipating cataclysmic hits to their traffic along the lines of what we saw when Penguin and Panda first rolled out (hence the charming name Mobilegeddon).

 

However, with April 21 now a few weeks in the rearview mirror, it seems that the vast majority of sites took the necessary steps to ensure their site would be mobile-friendly so as not to lose search visibility and traffic due to the mobile update as there has been little grumbling amongst webmasters about the fallout of the update.

 

Nonetheless, even if you didn’t fully prepare your site for the April 21st update and are still maintaining your mobile Google rankings, as Google continues to become the leader in mobile search, now is the best time to get caught up with the most recent update than to get left behind in the dust with future updates.

 

Here are the three essential steps to take to ensure your site is mobile-friendly and in good shape for future updates.

 

  1. Test your site

Before you go off making any massive changes to your site, Google has an easy     and accessible tool to determine if your site if already mobile-friendly. By running your URL through Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test Page, you will know within seconds whether your site is Mobile-Friendly in Google’s eyes. Another way to check is to search for your site on your mobile device and see if “Mobile-friendly” appears next to your site in the search results.

  1. Make sure your site is mobile-responsive

A responsive website is one whose layout and/or content adapts to the size of the screen upon which it is shown. Thus, a mobile-responsive site is a site that appears as it should no matter the device. Since the algorithm assesses each page individually—rather than on a website-wide basis—having your whole site be mobile-responsive is one surefire way to ensure you experience no negative effects from the algorithm. Plus, from a UX standpoint, being mobile-responsive is an ideal way to keep visitors on your site longer when more people than ever are using mobile devices to visit your site.

  1. Get on top of your app indexing

While each and every single element of the algorithm is still unknown—as is the case with almost all of Google’s algorithm—one new feature that Google has acknowledged is that app indexing will have a significant effect on how your site appears in the search results. Now, for the time being, this factor is solely related to Android apps, but according to Google, it will now display content from indexed apps more prominently in mobile search than app content that is not indexed. In order to ensure app indexing, make sure you add deep link support, verify your app’s official website on Google Play Console, provide deep links for any web page that has a corresponding deep link, and finally, check for errors in Webmaster Tools so you can fix them.

 

This last point is perhaps the most important for sites seeking to figure out how to get the most out of the mobile-friendly algorithm as Webmaster Tools is your one-stop site to learn everything you need to change to make sure your site is in line with the new algorithm changes. By following the above steps, your site will be mobile-friendly and optimized for mobile search in no time.

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