Your Site Must Be Mobile Friendly Or Your Search Engine Rankings Will Suffer!
Yes I know that’s a strong title/statement, but it’s really true! Google has laid down the “law.” If your website isn’t mobile friendly it will hurt your search engine rankings. Here’s the REALLY important statement direct from Google…
Starting April 21, 2015, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results. Consequently, users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices.
Click here to read the entire post from Google
Furthermore, considering over 50% of websites are now accessed via mobile devices (smartphones & tablets) to ignore the mobile audience is crazy!
How do you know if your site is mobile friendly? I’m glad you asked!
If it’s a few years old it’s very likely NOT mobile friendly unless whomever designed it was forward thinking and/or you had the budget to afford the extra coding. If you don’t know if your site is mobile friendly you can test it yourself. The easiest way to check it is to pull out your smartphone or tablet (android or apple it doesn’t matter) and pull up your site. Does it look like the site would on a computer? Then it’s NOT mobile friendly. Do you have to scroll not only up and down, but also right and left? Then your site is NOT mobile friendly. The next thing to do is use the opposite of what you just used to test your site. If you tested it on a smartphone, try a tablet or vice versa. Still scrolling both up and down and left and right? Your site isn’t mobile friendly!
What can you do about your site NOT being mobile friendly?
The first thing you can do is contact the company that created the site for you. They’ll either update your site (retro-fit), add a plugin that kind of works (they’re not exact, but close enough if you don’t have the budget for a retro-fit or new site) or recommend a new site. If they’re not available, contact another company. Oh I don’t know, maybe yours truly: Bull & Company. We didn’t have to build you site to retro-fit, add a plugin or create a new site! All of this responsive design. Don’t know what that is? It’s a website that works on ALL devices (computer, smartphone or tablet). Click here to read more.
When should you do it? NOW!
We’re less than a week out from Google’s deadline. Making a site mobile friendly takes time whether you retro-fit it, add a plugin or have to rebuild. The longer you wait, the greater the possibility of your search engine rankings are going to suffer. Since most people find what they’re looking for via search engines you can quickly see the importance of taking care of this ASAP!
Again, even if we didn’t build your site, please let us know if we can help, even simply advise.