Make Sure Your Site Is Mobile-Friendly

Everyone knows (or should know) that having a mobile-friendly website makes for an easier experience for the end user. Usually site load-time is quicker, information you need to find is easily found, and you are basically able to quickly get to what you want when you want it. Also it has been known by some, that your site, if mobile-friendly, will rank higher on search engines. However, Google has been reluctant to make it completely clear how important it is that your website be mobile-friendly. UNTIL NOW.

Beginning April 21st, things are going to change.

According to a recent post by Google, the tech giant is going to make a substantial algorithm change with regards to how the search engine ranks and recognizes mobile-friendliness.

Now it’s true that for awhile people have known that your website will rank better on Google if it is mobile-friendly. So you may be asking whats all the ‘Mobilegeddon’ talk about? In comparison to the two most important and impactful algorithm changes performed on search by Google (Panda and Penguin) this one happening in less than a month will be just as monumental (according to Zineb Ait Bahajji, a member of Google’s Webmaster Trends team, who was quoted at SMX Munich).

As of now Google hasn’t released the exact details of this new change, however from what was said by Bahajji, it appears that non-optimized websites will see significant decreases in search visibility.

What you can do

If your site is already mobile-friendly then there isn’t much to worry about. However if (like a lot of people) you have been putting this off, it looks like now may be the time to get going on optimizing your site. Google has two free resources that are great to see whether your site and its pages are mobile-friendly and to see what changes are required to get up to par. Mobile-Friendly Test will analyze your URL you enter and determine if it’s mobile-friendly. The other tool is found under Google Webmaster Tools, and is called the Mobile Usability Report. This report will give you advice on what to fix and change in order to get your site up to Google’s standards.

Is it the end of the world if your site isn’t mobile-friendly by April 21st? Definitely not, as this probably won’t be the last update Google does with regards to mobile-optimization. It is clear however that eventually down the road if your website isn’t catering to the millions of people using the Internet through their mobile devices, your site will be left in the dust and Google won’t care about it.