Google Launches Mobile Friendly Test Tool & Mobile Friendly Label

In the past 2 years I have mentioned multiple times about the importance of having a mobile optimised version of your Website and many of you have already made a shift to mobile optimised website. At the same time many of you who are waiting for the right time to move to mobile friendly theme, this is the right time for you to have a mobile optimised website. Google team announced the launch of a new label in search which will show if a webpage is mobile optimised or not. Undoubtedly this will affect click-through rate by great percentage for users using mobile phones to browse internet. This is how this new label will show up infront of web-pages which are mobile optimised.:

This is not an official ranking factor yet, but it might be consider as a ranking factors in coming days. Here is a quote form official announcement page:

“We are also experimenting with using the mobile-friendly criteria as a ranking signal.”

Here are some of the factors which you need to consider while making your website mobile friendly:

• Avoid using flash or any other software which is not common on all mobile devices.
• Text of the webpage should be readable without zooming.
• Sizes content to the screen so users don’t have to scroll horizontally or zoom.
• Links should be placed in a way so that they can easily be tapped and have enough space between two links.

Chances are your website is already mobile friendly and you might start seeing the “Mobile-friendly” label in mobile search engine soon for your website. Though you should also check Google webmaster tool for pages which are not mobile friendly. Here is the link to mobile usability report for your Google Webmaster tool. In my case I noticed few pages are marked as errors and I need to work on them to make it mobile friendly. Three most common types of error which I noticed here:

• Touch elements too close
• Flash usage
• Content not sized to viewport

Here is a screenshot from my Google Webmaster tool:

If you see similar errors on your GWT dashboard, make sure you spend time to make changes to remove all the usability errors.

Use Google’s Mobile Friendly testing tool To Test Mobile Website

If you are wondering about your website being mobile optimised or not, you should use mobile friendly testing tool by Google over here. Simply add your website link at the URL field and click on Analyse to see if your website passes or fails the test. Here is what the result is for ShoutMeLoud:

Having a mobile friendly website is not only need for the time but it’s a necessity in today’s date when mobile devices usage is increasing tremendously every day.

There are many approach you can take to make your WordPress Website/blog mobile friendly and the first one which I recommend is to use a good responsive WordPress theme. I useThesis WordPress theme with custom skin (responsive design) and I have a mobile specific design. You can open http://www.ShoutMeLoud.com on your mobile phone browser to see what I’m talking about.

Another approach is to use a WordPress plugin like WP Touch or use Jetpack plugin mobile theme to offer mobile optimized view.

Google mobile friendly badge will soon be available globally and I recommend you to ensure that your website is mobile friendly by then. If not, it will affect your click-through rate and may affect your search engine ranking on mobile search engines over the time.

• Must read: How to Rank#1 in Google search engine

Do let me know what approach you are taking to make your Website mobile friendly? Don’t forget to share about this with your friends on Google plus and Twitter.