Google's New Responsive Rule

So what's this big change you've been hearing about?

It's been long coming... From April 21st Google will punish websites that are not #responsive/#mobilefriendly http://t.co/EIQGN1je0J
— Studio44 (@larrytechuk) February 27, 2015

We have spoken in the past about responsive web design, and how it impacts SEO but now Google has moved the goalposts further. We have always known that a responsive site, optimised for mobile devices will help increase loading times, lower bounce rates, increase time on the site, increase time on the site and establish trust, all of which will help rankings but now Google has made it an essential element of your SEO strategy.

From 21^st April Google will now use the ‘mobile-friendliness’ of your website as a ranking signal meaning; a mobile friendly website will be rewarded in search engines, and a non-mobile friendly website will be penalised.

TIP: Enter you website into this handy tool to see if it is 'mobile-friendly' — www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly

What does this mean for you and your website?

To really get a feel for what this means for your website, you first need to understand what exactly responsive design is and how it works… instead of us regurgitating content we have written in the past, we talk about responsive web design here.

So now you know what responsive design is, how will the Google change impact your website if you don’t ‘respond’ to the change and optimise your website for mobiles?

The answer really depends on how reliant you are on your web presence and how competitive your industry is. If you’re in a highly competitive environment, a non-responsive website could see you tumbling down the rankings, losing traffic, enquiries and sales so for websites that are reliant on their web presence in a highly competitive industry, the potential repercussions are catastrophic.

If your website is less essential to your business, and you perform mostly for local non-competitive terms then you likely don’t need to worry as much, although your rankings and traffic may be slightly negatively impacted.

However bear in mind, all the drawbacks to a non-responsive website we have discussed in previous posts will still be there, and you will need to make the change at some point!

So what to do?

Again, have a think about your budget, have a think about what a responsive website will mean to you. If it will improve traffic, improve conversion rates and generally bring more to your business then it’s well worth doing.

Here is your checklist for what you need to do to ensure your website adheres to the Google policies:

Don’t use software not compatible for mobile devices, such as Flash
Use readable text. The general rule here is that if you have to zoom & scroll to read the text, your text is too small!
Ensure all content is visible on the screen so a user doesn’t have to scroll horizontally – if a user has to scroll up and down and the content is still readable, that’s fine!
Keep your links and buttons nice and far apart from one another. For those of us with slightly larger fingers it can be tricky to click on the right link on a touch screen if the buttons are too close together!

What do we think?

Overall we at Studio44 think this is a fantastic move from Google. The use of mobile devices to access the internet continues to grow rapidly so it makes sense that websites with a good mobile experience are rewarded and those without, punished. And from a user’s perspective this is yet another way to group the world’s data more efficiently and for Google to continue to improve their, already unmatched search results.