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Google Will Soon Be Ranking Mobile-Friendly Sites Higher In Its Search Results | DrivingSales News

Google Will Soon Be Ranking Mobile-Friendly Sites Higher In Its Search Results

March 2, 2015 0 Comments

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Google has announced two changes to its search algorithms that are certainly noteworthy for dealerships and marketers. These changes are intended to improve the quality of Google’s search results for mobile users. Considering the massive growth of mobile usage in recent times, it makes sense that Google is making these moves.

Beginning on April 21, the company will be expanding its use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. In addition to its mobile ranking factors labeling sites as mobile-friendly, it will also use that information to determine whether or not a website should rank higher in the search results. This algorithmic change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide. Google explained that it will have a “significant impact” on mobile search results, so it’s important to understand what constitutes a mobile-friendly site, and to take action in advance to ensure compliance.

Now, you may be wondering why this change isn’t happening immediately. Google has stated that it wants to allow businesses and marketers to prepare for the change, and is therefore providing some lead time.

Some of the general suggestions from Google for success when building a mobile site include:

  • Ensuring that all important information is easy to read on a small screen, without the need for a user to “pinch” or “zoom”.
  • Designing your site to make it simple for a visitor to complete common tasks.
  • Using “responsive web design” so that the same URL adjusts or “responds” according to the screen size. This allows you to maintain only one site for desktop and mobile users, which helps to guarantee consistency of information while providing an interface that is optimized for all screen sizes.

To gain a full understanding of what it takes to make your website mobile-friendly, Google provided the following links to tools that can assist you in creating and testing your site:

“To get help with making a mobile-friendly site, check out our guide to mobile-friendly sites. If you’re a webmaster, you can get ready for this change by using the following tools to see how Googlebot views your pages:

  • If you want to test a few pages, you can use the Mobile-Friendly Test.
  • If you have a site, you can use your Webmaster Tools account to get a full list of mobile usability issues across your site using the Mobile Usability Report.”

Additionally, starting today, Google is beginning to use information from indexed apps as a factor in ranking for signed-in users who have the app installed on their smartphone.

“As a result, we may now surface content from indexed apps more prominently in search,” wrote Google. “To find out how to implement App Indexing, which allows us to surface this information in search results, have a look at our step-by-step guide on the developer site.”

These changes come as good news for mobile users, as they should motivate any businesses that don’t have a mobile site to build one now. Truly, with the continuing rise of mobile usage, it’s essential to ensure that you have a mobile-friendly site. Now, with Google’s algorithmic changes, dealerships and other businesses have yet another reason to focus on their site’s mobile compatibility to make sure that it ranks as high as possible in search results.

About the Author:

The DrivingSales News team is dedicated to breaking the relevant and the tough stories affecting car dealers. Have questions for DrivingSales News? Reach the team at news@drivingsales.com.

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