Google’s Mobile Friendly Test
Does your Slow Food website pass Google’s Mobile Friendly test? If not you’re missing out on connecting with an important trend.
According to Google’s Inside Adwords blog, “The shift to mobile is no longer a change on the horizon. It’s here. Every year, there are trillions of searches on Google and over half of those searches happen on mobile. And across the millions of websites using Google Analytics today, we’re seeing more than half of all web traffic now coming from smartphones and tablets.”
Since we are still creating our digital content on a laptop or desktop device, we need to keep reminding ourselves that our users will likely interact with that content on a smaller display with a reversed width/height ratio.
Slow Food websites that didn’t pass the Google Mobile Friendly test in May 2015
In May 2015 I posted in the Facebook group for Slow Food Convivium Communication Managers a list of Slow Food websites that didn’t pass the Google Mobile Friendly test at the time.
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/
Because of this these chapter and national websites ranked lower on mobile google.com search for keywords they care about. They lost on traffic because of a technical limitation that in most cases is easily addressed.
How these Slow Food Websites are doing today
Today I revisited the list to see whether they have made the changes needed to pass Google’s Mobile Friendly test.
Out of the eleven mobile unfriendly Slow Food websites I identified more than a year ago only three had made the changes needed to do well on mobile. This was disappointing.
Here is my list of May 2015:
Slow Food France http://slowfood.fr/ Still NOT mobile-friendly
Slow Food International http://slowfood.com/ Now mobile-friendly. Congratulations!
Slow Food Denver http://slowfooddenver.org/ Now mobile-friendly. Congratulations!
Slow Food Phoenix http://www.slowfoodphoenix.org/ Now mobile-friendly. Congratulations!
Slow Food Youth Network http://www.slowfoodyouthnetwork.org/ Still NOT mobile-friendly
Slow Food Norway http://www.slowfood.no/ Still NOT mobile-friendly
Slow Food New York City http://www.slowfoodnyc.org/ Still NOT mobile-friendly
Slow Food Germany http://www.slowfood.de/ Still NOT mobile-friendly
Slow Food Boulder http://www.slowfoodboulder.com/ Still NOT mobile-friendly
Slow Food Netherlands http://www.slowfood.nl/ Still NOT mobile-friendly
Slow Food Pittsburgh http://www.slowfoodpgh.com/ Still NOT mobile-friendly
A few more Slow Food websites that are not Mobile Friendly
I looked at a number of other Slow Food websites, and found quite a few that need still to make the change.
I list here one mobile unfriendly site from each continent.
Slow Food San Francisco http://www.slowfoodsanfrancisco.com/
Slow Food Brazil http://www.slowfoodbrasil.com/
Slow Food UK https://www.slowfood.org.uk/
Slow Food Japan http://www.slowfoodjapan.net/
Slow Food Blue Mountains http://www.sfbm.com.au/
Slow Food Cape Town http://slowfoodcapetown.co.za/
As I said last year, search is increasingly done on cellphones and other small devices, and it’s important that your website is mobile friendly. This is even more true today.
Similarly for your newsletter: can it easily be read on a small screen?
We should do better on Mobile
I hope this post can encourage Slow Food webmasters to pay more attention to how their site is experienced on small devices.
A Next Step
“Mobile friendly” is of course only part of creating a good user experience on a small screen. Blocking some content from being displayed on a cell phone is another one. There is code for this. Which could be another posting.
Zeno Swijtink is the leader of the Media Team of Slow Food Russian River and the creator of the Facebook group for Slow Food Convivium Communication Managers, a networking group for people worldwide who volunteer in their Slow Food Convivium to create the best possible Website, Newsletter, Social Media Content, Event Announcements and Fundraising Campaigns to support their local groups to fulfill their mission. We network to brainstorm solutions and provide information about tools and good practices.
