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Is your website playing by Google's new rules?

Category: Web Design

Industry: Other

Client: Your company
Project Description

In 2019, "Google's new rules" meant their algorithms changed. How? They started focusing on the mobile version of your company's website to determine how well it should rank. Previously they focused on the desktop version of your website.

Many web designers never think about the mobile version of a website as it's own entity.  And that's a big mistake, because now that's a large piece of Google's algorithms that determine the worth of your website. Granted, there are lots of elements that go into evaluating your website and if it's worthy of ranking well. However those are topics for (many) other blog posts.

The obvious reason for this change is that most searches are being done on mobile devices. Even if the majority of your audience looks at your website on their desktops or laptop, Google is looking at your mobile site.

Read why "mobile first" is the only way to build websites in 2020.

It's Google's world. We're just living in it.

There's no getting around that little fact. So if you want your website to rank well, you HAVE to look at it from the "mobile first" perspective.

The obvious question then becomes "How do I know how well the mobile version of my website is built?  Well, fortunately, it's easy to find out, though you might not be happy about what you see.

Using Google's PageSpeed Insights, put your website's domain name in the top field to see the ranking Google gives both the mobile and desktop versions of your website. Here's a screen shot of the grades our website gets. (Note: the screenshot below is actually a compilation of both grades combined into one graphic for ease of reference.)

screenshot of comparison between sevells mobile and desktop speed adgering to Google's new rules

Now that you know about Google's new rules, what will you do?

What if you've tested your website in Google's PageSpeed Insights, and it doesn't get a passing grade? Well, that depends how seriously you take your company's website. If you consider it your main marketing tool , you should probably do something about it.

Talk with your web designer to see if they know about this tool. See if they know about building websites mobile first. See if THEIR website gets passing grades. If not, then you should probably look for a Columbus web design company that knows these things.