Have you taken a good look at your website recently? Is it current or does it need to be updated?
Google announced starting April 21st they will be giving websites that are mobile-friendly higher ranking than those that are not mobile-friendly.
This announcement will affect all websites worldwide and this means if you’re not mobile-friendly you will not rank as high as you do now when someone searches for you online. Is this a risk you want to take?
“In the USA, 94% of people with smartphones search for local information on their phones. Interestingly, 77% of mobile searches occur at home or at work, places where desktop computers are likely to be present.” (source: Google)
What Does a Mobile-Friendly Website Look Like?
A mobile friendly website fits within the screen of your mobile device. A website that is not mobile-friendly has small text and links you need to pinch or zoom to read. You may think that it’s okay to just 
pinch or zoom, but this actually gets cumbersome to the reader and they are likely to give up and leave your website. Chances are they won’t remember to check it once they are on their desktop.
Google has already started labelling websites mobile-friendly. This will stop more people from finding your business as they will scroll to the next website that is mobile-friendly. This could be your competitor’s website. Are you prepared to let your competitor get your mobile website traffic?
According to Google, A page is eligible for the “mobile-friendly” label if it meets the following criteria as detected by Googlebot:
Avoids software that is not common on mobile devices, like Flash- Uses text that is readable without zooming
- Sizes content to the screen so users don’t have to scroll horizontally or zoom
- Places links far enough apart so that the correct one can be easily tapped
It has also been mentioned, Google will add a slow label to your website in the future if your website is slow to load.
How Can You Tell If Your Website is Mobile-Friendly?
If you’re not sure if your website is mobile-friendly, you can use the Mobile-Friendly Test.
Mobile isn’t just starting to become popular, it is popular and the number of people using the internet on mobile is just going to increase. If you haven’t already done so, now is the time to have a website that looks like you are in business in the year 2015, not 2009 or 2005, or even earlier, when you first created your website. You need to compete within your industry using today’s technologies!
If you would like to update your website so it is a mobile-friendly, send an email to info@socialdragonmarketing.com to learn how we can help.
Photo source: chawalitpix at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
