Many people wonder how, in such a fast changing environment, Google manage to keep a firm grip on their position as the most used search engine on the internet.
The answer is, at heart, very simple. In order to deliver the best customer experience, they constantly update how they index and rank websites in order to ensure the closest matching sites to search terms are presented first. To achieve this, in very broad terms they take into account two factors – the relevance of content on the site and how accessible it is.
The most recent update to how Google ranks sites has been in relation to the latter, with emphasis given on whether or not a website is possible to use in full on a mobile device.
Although mobile friendly sites getting a higher return result on Google is not in itself new, the latest algorithm update has made this focused on the device used. This is to say that if you carry out a search on a smartphone or tablet, the results will be different from the same term used to search on a desktop or laptop. The top results in both cases will feature the websites which appear and function best on the screen size of the device being used.
It is interesting that the number 60 crops up in terms of the statistics relevant to this new algorithm change. At present, close to 60% of all web traffic in the UK is via a mobile device. Co-incidentally, some 60% of UK websites are not mobile responsive or adaptive. Many people, in particular businesses, risk losing visibility on the web due to the fact that their site will not function on the type of device being used to try and find their services.
The optimal position for you to be in right now with your website is to ensure that it is adaptive and responsive. By having a site which automatically adjusts the display to the specifications of the screen being used to view it you make it fully functional for visitors and avoid losing your position on Google.
Our team are totally committed to giving our clients the best performance possible on the web. We design and build websites which offer a fully responsive experience, making sure that businesses can get the search engine ranking they want and that their customers can access what they need. If a complete new build is not necessary we have the skills to make existing sites responsive, boosting their performance.
If you have any questions about responsiveness or web design in general you can contact us and speak to a member of our team.