Upcoming Changes To Google’s Mobile Rankings: How Search Engine Optimisation Can Help

Earlier this month, Google announced that it would be making changes to its mobile ranking algorithm; from July 2018, the page speed will be a factor in a website's ranking on mobile searches. This now makes Search Engine Optimisation simply vital to any business that needs to carve out an online presence; not only do their product pages need to contain great content that abides by their best practices, the pages will also need to be able to load as quickly as possible.

In Google's own words, their new 'Speed Update' will affect those websites that it sees as having 'pages that deliver the slowest service to users'. Whilst this change will only likely affect a small percentage of websites, Google processes over 3 billion search queries per day – so a 'small percentage' is quite significant in real terms. From this, it's understandable that website owners may become concerned about how this update may affect them. In this blog, we're going to look more closely at this new update and how SEO can help.

Why Is Search Engine Optimisation On Mobile Important?

Being able to hone their website's content to abide by a search engine's best practices should be paramount for any business who wants to possess a long-term presence in a keyword search. Not only does search engine optimisation help to make the website visible to the exact people that would be interested in what it has to offer, but being near the top of a keyword search also gives the user a sense of trust towards the site too. True, paid advertising may gleam many short-term visits to the website, but SEO can provide a more cost-effective, long-term presence that over time, would build up the trust and authority that users of search engines want to be reassured by.

With mobile searches, the key point to remember is that searches on mobile devices now outnumber those that are done on 'traditional' desktop computers and laptops. With mobile technology and connectivity constantly improving, it isn't too farfetched to suggest that the gap between mobile and desktop will widen even further. This is why being able to optimise a website for mobile must be placed high on a website owner's priority list.

The Need For (Mobile) Speed

Google has been using page speed as a factor in their rankings for desktop computers since 2010. During that time, it was considered best practice for website owners to improve their site's optimisation abilities for the growing mobile market too. Now it has been made official that page speed will become a ranking factor for mobiles.

The announcement from Google, unveiling the rollout of the new update, doesn't actually give too much information away about how website owners should improve their websites to rank well on their search platforms. What we do know from the news, is:

• The update will impact websites that deliver a 'slow experience' to its users. However, Google hasn't given an actual benchmark as to what their preferred speed is, so site owners are somewhat in the dark in knowing if their current set-up will be affected. All they can do is to ensure that their pages are able to load as fast as possible and monitor the situation.
  
• The effects of the update apply across the board, regardless of the technology used to build the website. Even websites that use the open-sourced AMP will be ranked down if they deliver a slow experience.
  
• However, the relevance and quality of content is still the important factor over the loading speed. This makes good search engine optimisation vital in a website's ranking. Remember that Google wants to provide a service in which their users are able to find the best, most relevant content that they search for. As such, relevant content that is slow to load should still rank higher than no content that may have a faster loading speed.
  
• There will be no notifications from Google that will inform the owner that their website rankings are being affected by slow speeds – this is something that can only be known if they use specialist browser tools, such as Chrome User Experience Report.

Another thing we know from the update is that Google wants website owners to place more thought into pushing up the quality of the content along with the time in which the page is able to load. As such, being able to carry out effective search engine optimisation in high quality on-page content will still be as important – something an expert SEO agency can help with.

Promote – An Expert SEO Agency

Here at Promote, we are a vastly-experienced digital marketing agency that is on hand to help our clients to improve their presence in the vast online marketplace. If you are a website owner that is looking to promote your business; whether it's to increase sales, awareness of your brand (or both) then we are able to implement great SEO that would help your pages to abide by the latest changes to Google's algorithm.

Our digital account managers and copywriting team are able to reshape and revitalise your website and provide the quality, relevant content it needs in order to rank high on Google. We take the time to understand your business and the products/services it provides in order to create this content, building up a framework and structure that will help you to achieve your goals. Why not get in touch with us today to learn more?

Get In Touch With Our Digital Marketing Experts Today

If you would like further information on search engine optimisation, or on any aspect of our digital marketing services, please do not hesitate to get in touch with one of our friendly SEO experts today. Give us a call on 0118 380 1002 or alternatively, you can contact us by e-mail at hi@promote.agency.