What’s this about?
Google has gone all curvy with its new mobile layout.
It’s a pretty big look and feel update, but not a major change to SERP.
I haven’t got the stats one way or another, but I would estimate that the “boxed” design mean click gravitate towards the top of the listings.
Read this extract from TWIS SEO News & Updates 3rd November 2017.
#SEO #SEONews #Google #SERP #WebDesign
Google Releases New Curvy Mobile Results
Key Issues Summary:
- Google has started to roll out a new curvy look on its mobile results.
- This is a significant update to its look and feel on mobile. Probably the biggest since the 2013 “card” design was first rolled out.
- It includes all boxes including Universal Search boxes and ads.
- This appears to mix elements of Google’s Material Design (see its Web Fundamentals area) and the rounded corners of Bootstrap and *cough* Apple – remember that argument?
Key Actions To Take:
- It has to be said, there are few actions to take in response to this.
- You should take the next two points to anyone who has a hand in designing your mobile site though…
- One point to note strongly as you admire the corner radii of the new Google look is that Google’s key links under the search box are not hidden away in a hamburger. Keep your key navigation links displayed, even on mobile.
- The second point about the key links is that they are *under* the search box, the key action people want to take on the page.
- Logo, action, key links, content. Make sure your mobile designers remember this mantra.
- Click here to contact me to discuss making your site more user friendly on mobile.
Insights & Discussion:
Google is constantly fiddling with look and feel. They must have whole departments whose job it is to change and test CSS.
Testing, analysing and improving are good things to do on any website, at any time, although Google does have the luxury of a few squillion daily visitors to test on and get good confidence scores from their tests.
As far as the design goes, I have been known to wear rollneck jumpers, but I’m no critic. As long as the design makes it clearer for the user to do what they want to do, I’m all for it. I do feel that boxed content works well in some instances to distinguish separate areas (like on this page), but I’m not sure each search result should get its own result – as they are seen as distinct entities then, rather than a body of results. You would probably find that the result of “boxing” is that clicks gravitate towards the top, rather than distribute down the page.
More Information:
Mobile First is NOT Mobile Friendly
TL;DR
- Google’s mobile SERP have gone all curvy and boxy.
- It doesn’t look anything like Twitter / Bootstrap, honest!
- Nor Apple’s curves.
- This would have been tested to infinity and back with the outcome that Google makes more money. Remember that.
- Read The State of SEO in mid-2017.
- Read about how Google’s Mobile First Index is not Mobile Friendly.
- Finally, get your content ranking well on Google by starting to understand Find Crawl Index.
Thanks for reading. If you would like to discuss what these changes mean for your web property, or would like to know how to implement them, please feel free to contact me.
