With 60% of all internet searches now done on mobile devices – a figure that is only going to rise – of course you want your website to stand out in mobile search results!
We know that Google gives preferential treatment to websites that are mobile responsive (ie change layout and font size etc to suit the device being used), in search engine results.
And they have also been telling us for several months that they will start ranking sites starting with https:// more highly, than those with http://.
However, I’m a bit of cynic. Only three or four years ago, it was all about setting up Google Authorship. And then – it wasn’t. The benefits of Google Authorship disappeared overnight!
So even though I’ve heard rumblings about making sure your site should be switched over to https://, I adopted a “wait and see” approach before advising any of my clients to take action. I did set up one of my own sites with https:// however, as a bit of an experiment, wondering if and when I would notice any difference.
Last night I noticed one big change. My secure site https://janetcamilleri.com is now getting better results on mobile searches.
Picture This!
When I searched for my own name in Google, not only did my site come up – but the listing included a pretty picture, which definitely made my listing stand out on the page.
The sites I hadn’t touched – like this one, http://frontpagewebwriting? No picture in search results 🙁 .
If you would like better results on mobile searches, I think the time has come to switch to https://. Talk to the company hosting your website about how much it will cost to do this, and redirect your old URL starting with http:// to https://. The bigger your website is, the more it tends to cost.
Have you noticed the new images appearing in mobile search results?
