What factors make a ranking difference between Desktop and Mobile?

[vtmoz]

Hi all,

What makes a website rank better on mobile? Usually page load speed and mobile responsiveness matters and makes a difference to rank w website better on mobile than desktop. our website is surprisingly ranking better on Mobile but not much on desktop. What might influenced here in improvement in mobile ranking and drop in desktop?

Thanks

[AndersS]

Hi!

It can be a great many things that casues the rankings to be different. Perhaps some of these are fitting to your site:

• Your site gives a better experience than your competitors on mobile
• Your site has a greater CTR from organic search results than your competitors
• (Mobile) page speed
• Font setup on mobile vs dekstop (readability and user experience)

I found this article on SearchEngingWatch that could be of interest to you.

Best regards,
Anders

[DonnaDuncan]

I don't have any evidence to support this theory, but I suspect engagement has a lot to do with it.

Here's a good article that explains how you can use Google Analytics to assess your own website's visitor engagement. You might want to compare desktop to mobile to see if there is a noticeable difference. It's very hard to get data that allows you to compare engagement metrics across different websites unfortunately.

[lydiagilbertson]

+1 to both of the above comments! It's hard to say why a website ranks higher in mobile than in desktop without actually seeing it. However, a few factors could be at play here:

1. Site Speed

2. Not having pop-ups or flash enabled on your mobile site

3. Structured Data is present

More data is certainly needed in order to answer your question in a more specific way.

Good question!