Are You Mobile Ready?
We’ve been advising our clients for some time now, that they need to think about having their websites “mobile enabled.” And now it’s official: Google has announced that websites that are not mobile friendly by April 21st, 2015, will likely see their rankings in the search results affected.
How significant will the search result changes be? Google has indicated that their mobile friendliness algorithm could affect more websites than the Panda and Penguin updates!
With mobile usage growing massively, it only makes sense for Google to provide search results to mobile users that are good for them. It’s estimated that today, 50% or more of all searches are done on a mobile device, and therefore in order to rank well, businesses need to pay attention to how well their website performs on those devices.
In some cases, it might not be too difficult to make a present website mobile friendly, while other sites will need a thorough makeover. In addition, some thought will need to be given to either making a site “responsive” or creating a new mobile version of the present website. There are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches, however Google’s recommendations at this time appear to be in the direction of a single website that is responsive rather than two separate versions of the same site.
We’ve been seeing the trends in mobile usage increasing dramatically over the past several years, and in 2014, total global mobile internet use caught up to desktops and surpassed them. And with this in mind, don’t you want your potential visitors to have a good experience while visiting your website? With that question in mind, it only makes sense for Google to make mobile friendliness a major ranking factor for websites.
If a big part of your business depends on search traffic, it really is time to start thinking about and immediately taking action to ensure that your site is mobile friendly. Waiting until April 21st will likely mean a loss in site traffic for you, and further, you’ll be playing “catch up” with your competition who have already acted.
Give Us A Call
If you understand the importance of ensuring your website is up to date, give us a call and we can discuss what needs to be done. As well, we can help with other areas to improve your marketing, branding, and search engine optimization, services we offer in addition to website design and development.
Call us at (519) 940-3504. While we are located in Orangeville, ON, we’re able to help clients throughout North America and other parts of the world. If you’d prefer to send an email, that’s fine too: [email protected].