Mobile Site Design and Performance Key to Rankings

By Mehdi Daoudi

A site’s mobile friendliness can be factored in a number of ways. With the ultimate goal being favorable results in Google searches conducted on mobile devices, it makes sense to abide by the criteria that Google itself has outlined:

Avoid software that's not common on mobile devices, like Flash.
Use text that's readable without zooming.
Size content to the screen so users don’t have to scroll horizontally or zoom.
Place links far enough apart so that the correct one can be easily tapped.

You’ll notice that all of these criteria are related to site design rather than performance standards such as mobile site load speed and availability. Yet back in 2010, Google stated that its algorithm would begin to factor performance into its search rankings when it came to desktop sites. Now, given the prevalence of mobile browsing, wouldn’t it make sense to assume that performance will become a factor in this arena as well?