It’s official.
Google is cracking down on websites that aren’t mobile-friendly. For the first time that I can recall, they named the date. In an announcement made last week, Google said that they will be changing their algorithm to give precedence to mobile-friendly websites. The change is expected April 21, 2015.
What can you expect?
If your site is already mobile-friendly, this is good news. If you’ve been trying to outrank a competitor and they are not mobile-friendly, you might finally get that bump in rankings you’ve been looking for.
On the flipside, if your website is not considered “mobile-friendly” by Google’s standards, then you can expect that some of the sites you normally outrank in search could move ahead of your site.
Wondering where you stand? Simply do a Google search for your site on your smart phone. If, before the description you see the words “Mobile-friendly” you are all set.
How do you get mobile friendly?
The best way is to re-design your site to be responsive. That means that your site will adapt it’s view to look great on any device, and it’s quickly become best practice. Bruce Clay, our favorite SEO source just published an article about the change that explains the technical details that I won’t bore you with here.
Not mobile-friendly? Don’t panic.
The update is pretty important. But for what it’s worth, I expect that the changes you see after April 21 will not be catastrophic. Google is still in the business to deliver the most relevant search results. They want searchers to have a good user-experience, but the quality and relevance of the content is still the most important factor. If they suddenly black-listed great websites that aren’t mobile-friendly, they would make it harder for people to access the world’s information.
Just like any algorithm change we’ve seen in the past, this will be one of hundreds of factors that affect where a site ranks. But it’s an easy factor to benefit from, so it’s important that you small businesses take the time to go responsive as soon as possible.
Is your head spinning?
This happened fast.
But so has the mobile revolution. Just a few years ago, only a minority of the population OWNED a smartphone. Today more people access the web on mobile devices like smartphones or tablets than on traditional computers. Odds are, you’re reading this article on a mobile device!
As a result, many organizations will be scrambling to catch up. Spire can help you turn your website into a mobile-friendly, responsive site. If you haven’t updated the look of your site in a couple years, you are probably due for a refresh anyway! If you need help, reach out and we’ll help you get this figured out!