By Adam Forrest, Demandware
Back in April, Google made a critical algorithm update. By boosting the ranking of mobile-friendly pages on mobile search results, the behemoth search engine aims to help users more easily pull high-quality, relevant results. This change significantly increases the weighting of mobile-friendly sites in their ranking system.
Google now gives preference to better consumer experiences through mobile ready web sites over their non-mobile ready counterparts.
What does this mean for retailers? A lot.
Advertisement
Not only do non-mobile optimized sites convert less than their mobile-ready counterparts, but getting people to those sites will now be more difficult. Traffic down and conversion down equals revenue way down. In explaining the move on its official Webmaster blog, Google said that, “users will find it easier to get relevant, high-quality search results that are optimized for their devices.”
So, what can retailers do to get with the responsive design program? First, take Google’s Mobile Friendly test for a mobile site health check. If your site isn’t optimized, here’s a quick checklist to run through:
Quick Fixes
- Allow indexing of Javascript, CSS and images. You can do this by ensuring your robots file is not set to disallow these assets.
- Use Google Webmaster to test that both desktop and mobile URLs are crawl-able and don’t result in any errors.
- Make sure all your URL redirects are valid (no errors — check Google Webmaster).
Design Fixes
- Avoid proprietary content players (e.g. Adobe Flash) since they don’t always render on mobile devices.
- Use responsive design when possible (Demandware helps here by providing a reference implementation that’s responsive design compliant).
- If you have links in your desktop site page pointing to the mobile site (and vice-versa), make sure these links point to its corresponding peer and not a generic page like, for example, the home page.
- Use Google PageSpeed Insights to discover if your site has any issues that can slow page load times. If there are, fix them.
Responsive design is just one critical way that retailers can create a positive user experience. Perhaps more important than this specific update from Google, is what it indicates about browsing/shopping behavior and preferences. Google is in effect rewarding companies that deliver the most comprehensive and compelling experience across all devices. This isn’t all too surprising given the trend towards cross-device engagement — especially for online shopping. The Q1 2015 Demandware Shopping Index revealed that smartphones accounted for 35% of e-Commerce traffic and 18% of orders. Further, the Index found that 21% of shoppers use multiple devices to complete an online purchase.
It’s no secret that mobile devices are exploding as Internet access points, and that smartphones are an integral part of the evolution to omnichannel retailing embraced by merchants worldwide. Google’s new ranking methodology will further hasten development of mobile capabilities.
Adam Forrest is Senior Director of Americas Marketing at Demandware, responsible for defining the company’s marketing strategy and leading cross-functional teams in opportunity development, field programs, major trade shows and events and communications strategy. Save for a brief sojourn in 2008, Adam has been with Demandware in a variety of roles since 2005.
