Why Google is Pushing on Mobile-Friendly Websites

Providing a seamless mobile experience is essential as consumers' most preferred device to access internet is mobile phone, which is used for over 100 times a day. Also, reader retention depends profusely on the appearance of the website.

According to Google, mobile usability is one of the most crucial factors when it comes to ranking your website on search engines. Creating a mobile-friendly website may be determined on the browsing habits and user preference.

Below are some of the crucial factors for a website to be mobile-friendly and eventually crawlable by search robots, also known as Crawlers:

1. Short URLs, and links to home page, interior pages and relevant pages placed at an appropriate distance and are easy to click with thumb.
2. Navigation links that are not embedded within forms.
3. Text that is legible without the need of zooming in. (As nobody wants to strain their eyes over tiny text, having text in readable fonts like Sans serif and of a point size 14pt or 16pt is good to go with!)
4. Responsive website design that suits all types of screens. (Keep it easy to navigate with not only mouse clicks but also touch controls!)
5. Images, videos and infographics that do not require the readers to resize, rotate the screen or scroll down the pages.
6. A website that does not use any software or script that is not supported by mobile phones. For eg. Flash, JavaScript or Ajax.

But that is just not all, the optimization of a website for mobile searches is more than effective in terms of retraction. That is, even if your site is mobile-friendly but not mobile-optimized, the chances are, it won’t appear higher on the results page.

There is a shift of search results to rank according to a mobile-first index by Google, which means a mobile-friendly website will be put on a higher priority. Websites which are not mobile-friendly, are bound to be ranked lower.

Considering the usage patterns and needs of today’s consumers, mobile optimization is a requisite of a website. The objective of such a website is to provide the consumer an experience that is frictionless. It consists of attributes like single column scrolling and click locations that are thumb-friendly.

This also is a reason why Google gives precedence to websites that provide optimum mobile experience, and it can be considered as a primary benchmark for consumer satisfaction.

Statistically, 50% of the smartphone users spend half of the day on their phones. Looking at this upsurge, it is clear that it would not take long for mobile users to become the majority consumers.

Moreover, maximum number of people view the content on mobile phones, so it might as well be tailored according to their preferences. Also, today's consumer is more inclined towards instant shopping from mobile apps on the mobiles, no matter where they are.

Being the most technologically literate generation, the millennials are well-versed with the technical aspects of mobile phones. They communicate more through handheld digital devices such as mobile phones or smartphones than they do face-to-face.

And if this new wave of consumers gets a bad user experience, it can be detrimental for a website or an app to be popular. So, to provide this humongous consumer base with what it demands, Google ranks the mobile-friendly websites higher on SERPs.

This mobile generation, that drives the business and market trends, expects the information to be precise, and in a concise, crisp and visually engaging mobile-friendly format. And this is exactly what Web Stories are. They are fast loading, mobile-centric Stories, a cutting-edge storytelling format and the future of Internet.

One can create immersive Web Stories in short span of time with Visual Stories, a platform that offers marketers, online businesses and content creators a user-friendly Story creation tool 'Web Story Builder'. It is the best way to get Web Stories on your website and deliver modern user experiences to your customers.