Last week Google started adding a small grey “Mobile-friendly” tag to some results when people search on their phones. It appears just below the page address in the search result, before the description. The change is rolling out around the world over the next few weeks, so you may or may not see it on your own phone yet.
It sounds like a minor design change. For small businesses, we think it is worth paying attention to, for two reasons. First, people searching on a phone can now see, before they tap, which sites will be easy to use. Second, Google has said openly that it is experimenting with using the same mobile-friendly criteria as a ranking signal.
What Google is checking
Google says a page can get the mobile friendly label Google is now showing if Googlebot finds that it:
- Avoids software that is not common on mobile devices, such as Flash.
- Uses text that can be read without zooming.
- Sizes the content to the screen, so people do not have to scroll sideways or zoom.
- Places links far enough apart that the right one can be tapped easily.
None of this is new advice. These are the same basics we have been talking about with clients since responsive design became common. What is new is that Google is now showing the result of the check to searchers, right in the results page.
Why the label matters even before rankings change
Picture someone in Lajpat Nagar searching for a dentist nearby on their phone. They see four results. Three have the “Mobile-friendly” tag and one does not. Which ones are they more likely to tap?
We cannot give you a number for this, and we would be suspicious of anyone who claims one this early. But common sense says that when people are told in advance that a site will be awkward on their phone, some of them will skip it. That affects your clicks whatever happens to rankings.
And Google’s own announcement says it is experimenting with mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. Google does not usually say this kind of thing unless it is heading somewhere. Earlier this year it did something similar with HTTPS, announcing a small ranking signal and saying it might get stronger over time.
How to check your site
There are three simple ways.
1. Search for yourself on your phone
Search Google on your phone for your business name or a page you know ranks, and look for the grey label under your address. Remember that it is still rolling out, so if you see no labels on anyone’s results, try again in a few days.
2. Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test
Google has released a free tool called the Mobile-Friendly Test. You paste in a page address, and it tells you whether Googlebot thinks the page is mobile-friendly. If it is not, it lists the reasons, such as text too small to read or content wider than the screen. Test your home page and also your most important inner pages, like contact, services and product pages. Each page is judged on its own.
3. Look at the Mobile Usability report in Webmaster Tools
If your site is verified in Google Webmaster Tools, there is a Mobile Usability report that lists problems across the whole site, not just one page. This is the best place to see whether an issue is limited to a few old pages or affects every page built on your theme. If you have never set up Webmaster Tools, this is a good reason to do it now. It is free and takes a few minutes.
Common reasons small business sites fail
From the sites we have looked at so far, these are the usual causes:
- An old fixed-width theme. Many WordPress and custom sites built a few years ago were designed for desktop screens only. On a phone, the whole page simply shrinks.
- A missing viewport tag. A single line in the page header tells phones how to size the page. Without it, even a decent design can render like a desktop page.
- Flash. Flash intros, Flash menus and Flash photo galleries do not work on iPhones and most Android phones. If your site still has any, it needs to go.
- Tiny text and crowded buttons. Menus with small links packed close together are hard to tap with a thumb.
- Blocked files. Some sites block Googlebot from loading their CSS and JavaScript files through robots.txt. Google then cannot see the page the way visitors do and may decide it is not mobile-friendly even when it looks fine on your phone. The Mobile-Friendly Test will point this out.
The last one catches people out. We have seen WordPress sites with robots.txt rules, added years ago by a plugin or a developer, that block the theme folder. Removing that rule is a five-minute fix.
What to do if your site fails
It depends on how old the site is and how it was built.
If you are on WordPress with a reasonably recent theme, there may be a responsive option or an updated version of the theme that fixes most issues. Check that first, and always take a backup before changing themes.
If your site was custom-built, a developer may be able to add responsive styles to the existing design. This works well for simple sites with a handful of pages.
If the site is several years old, built in Flash or on a table-based layout, it is usually quicker and cheaper to rebuild it on a responsive theme than to patch it. We know nobody likes hearing that, but patching a site that was never designed for phones tends to cost more in the end.
A separate mobile site, on an address like m.yoursite.com, can also earn the label if it meets the criteria. For most small businesses we still prefer one responsive site, because there is only one set of pages to keep updated.
Do not stop at passing the test
The label is a minimum. A page can pass Google’s test and still be frustrating to use. On a phone, people want your phone number to be tappable, your address to open in Maps, your opening hours to be easy to find and the page to load quickly on a 2G or 3G connection. A restaurant menu uploaded as a large PDF is still painful on a phone, even if the rest of the site passes.
If you are not sure where your site stands, send us the address. We will run it through the test, check the Webmaster Tools report with you and tell you plainly whether it needs a few fixes or a fresh start.
