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Responsive design is affecting your rankings

By Fiona Ness on Thu 23 April 2015 in Web & eCommerce

Back in February Google announced that they would be rewarding websites that had already implemented a responsive design. As of 21st April 2015 Google have been using responsive design as a key factor in their search ranking algorithm.

Of course it’s not as simple as just having a responsive design and there are still a lot of other measures you can put in place to boost your ranking, but if you haven’t already made your site responsive now is as good a time as any.

When it comes to SEO it often seems like Google (and other search engines) are saying jump and we say how high? But in reality these companies are just delivering what the consumer wants to see, the statistics speak for themselves:

  • Last year mobile web traffic to online shops rose 120%
  • 61% of customers leave a site if it is not mobile friendly
  • In 2014 54% of consumers researched products from their smartphone
  • 34% of them went on to make a purchase from the same device

If you’re reading this and thinking ‘my site isn’t responsive’ then we recommend you review this as soon as possible. This update to Google’s algorithm is said to have a “significant impact” on mobile search results worldwide. According to Practical E-commerce, the update improves rankings for sites that provide a mobile-friendly experience to searchers on mobile devices but demotes sites that do not. It’s worth noting here that the mobile-friendly update will only affect mobile search results (i.e. searches from smartphones and tablets), not searches conducted on a desktop, laptop or computer. However, considering mobile accounts for 40% online sales, this could be a massive hit to your business.

 If you want to test how mobile-friendly your site is, then just use this mobile-friendly test tool to find out!