This week, I had the privilege of talking with some amazing clients down in Nashville at our Power Breakfast on using data-driven decision making and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to make their websites their best salesman.
During the talk, we realized that many folks hadn’t heard much about any of the latest updates Google has made— and they all affect you getting the most of your web sales!
Since you probably are too busy to follow all the Google news on updates and changes we wanted to make sure you understood why you need to make sure your website is mobile-friendly (that is a site that displays well not only on desktop computers, but also on your phone and tablets).
Here is the story:
In April 2015, Google announced something that, at the time, seemed like the end of web as we knew it. A substantial update to their ranking system for mobile devices that was soon coined Mobilegeddon. The implications for this page rank change effectively ranked mobile-friendly websites at the top of search pages and ranked sites that were not mobile friendly later in page searches—or if a search term was very popular, maybe not at all.
Why was this big news?
At the time of the update only 38% of websites were optimized for mobile search. AND nearly 85% of mobile searchers used Google for their searches.
If you don’t have a mobile-friendly site, here’s some tips to get your site mobile-ready:
Step 1—Test your site. First check to see if your site is considered mobile-friendly. Here’s a link to Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to see how well your site performs.
Step 2—Identify what elements make up a mobile-friendly site. Google considers mobile-friendly to consist of the following:
- Readable text sizes without zooming
- Content that fits the mobile screen, without horizontal scrolling or zooming
- Avoids software that isn’t supported by mobile devices (ex: Flash)
- Links spaced far enough apart to be easily tapped.
Step 3—Identify the right fixes for your site. Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test results along with PageSpeed Insights to identify specific issues with your site.
In order for your site to be considered mobile-friendly, it needs to either have responsive web design, dynamic serving, or use of separate URLs.
Responsive web design—Google’s recommended option, a responsive site that uses the same URL for all devices and renders appropriately (using some formatting tricks) for any screen size.
Dynamic serving—A configuration that uses the same URL but different HTML versions to serve different devices.
Separate URLs—this method uses separate URLS and HTTP redirects for different types of users (ex: mobile vs desktop). Essentially here, you have different sites designed for specific devices.
To ensure your site is mobile, you will need to create a mobile-friendly theme. If using a content management system (CMS), like WordPress, you likely will be able to convert your site into a mobile-friendly theme or create a new mobile-friendly themed site. If you wish to customize a WordPress theme, you likely will need to know a little bit about HTML formatting and CSS scripts.
And make sure to backup your site before updating it or making any changes!
Step 4—Act NOW. Mobilegeddon is already under way and you’re losing out if your site is not mobile friendly!
Is your site mobile-friendly? Are you concerned that your website is under performing? Our expert team web team will not only help make your website mobile friendly, but make your site more intuitive, your content more engaging to get you the sales your website should be generating.
