Back on April 21st, Google launched a brand new algorithm designed to elevate the rankings of mobile friendly / responsive websites. It shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise for those who pay close attention to Google, with the search engine releasing a mobile friendly checking tool and mobile friendly search tags late last year.

Of course, in order to benefit from increased mobile search rankings, you need to check that your Magento site is actually mobile friendly. To give you a helping hand, we’ve put together the guide below.

Why is mobile friendliness important?

Having a mobile friendly Magento site will not only allow you to benefit from increased rankings and traffic but also improved conversions. A mobile friendly website will offer a better user experience to web visitors, which will make them more likely to make a purchase.

Ensuring your eCommerce site is mobile friendly will also prevent you from alienating mobile users and losing them to your competitors, therefore offering a higher return on investment than traditional desktop sites.

Essential tools for checking your Magento website

One way you can tell if your Magento site is mobile friendly is by actually viewing it on your tablet and smartphone. If however, you would prefer actual proof that your site is optimised for mobile viewing, we recommend using the tools below…

Google Mobile-Friendly Test tool

Google offers a free Mobile-Friendly Test tool that every Magento user can use to check if their site is mobile friendly.

All you need to do is enter your URL and wait a few minutes for Google to assess your website. They will then either see a banner that says ‘Awesome! This page is mobile-friendly’ or ‘Not mobile-friendly.’

If Google says your site isn’t mobile-friendly, it will give you reasons why. These might be that your content is wider than the screen or that the links are too close together. Either way, you’ll need to rectify the issues if you want to benefit from increased mobile rankings.

Google Page Speed tool (Google Insights)

Another tool available from Google is the page speed tool. https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights. It’s advisable to insert your URL and the tool will test your site speed on both mobile and desktop devices.

Page speed is another aspect of mobile friendliness that can’t be underestimated. Once the URL is entered and the test is complete a rating will be given out of 100%. There will be a list of suggested fixes to make to improve the speed of the page.

Google Webmaster Tools

Another way you can tell if your Magento website is mobile friendly is by checking your Google Webmaster Tools. If your site has mobile optimisation issues, Google Webmaster Tools will send you a notification telling you so.

The notification will appear on the first page of Google Webmaster Tools and tell you that Google has tested X number of pages from your site and the percentage that have mobile usability errors. It then explains that Google will not see these pages as mobile friendly and that your mobile rankings could be affected.

The good news is that Google Webmaster Tools provides a number of resources that inform you how to make your Magento website mobile friendly.

Checking your Google Analytics

If your Magento site isn’t mobile friendly, you may want to take a look at your Google Analytics and see if it has affected your traffic from organic search on mobile. You can find this information by using a segment that only reveals the mobile traffic from Google organic search.

If there’s a significant dip in your traffic since 21^st April 2015, it’s a sign that you need to get to work on making your Magento website mobile friendly. Either that or you’ll continue to lose traffic, lower your rankings and miss out on important sales.

Conclusion

If you want to make the most of your Magento website, it’s critically important than you invest in a mobile friendly or responsive web design. This will not only ensure that your site offers a great shopping experience for customers but also that you gain access to the ranking benefits offered to mobile friendly websites by Google.

If you need any help with testing or adding a responsive design to your Magento site do get in touch with us here at the Magento eCommerce Agency, we always love to speak about Magento projects.

 

Image credits: RassaLibre