Mobilegeddon is coming. Will your website be ready on April 21st?
Date: March 31, 2015Category: Author: Jaren Martineau
Google announced in February that it will soon begin to take “mobile friendliness” into account in determining your website’s search engine rankings on searches done from mobile devices. The date that was announced for when this update will begin to roll out is April 21st. Some have already given a name to this Google update, “mobilegeddon”. This should not come as a big shock to those who read our blog, as we have been advocating upgrading your website design to a mobile responsive design for quite some time. Google has also made recent changes in this direction as well, such as the relatively new “Mobile-friendly” designation that appears next to the website’s that are designed to be mobile friendly in its search results.
There are many compelling reasons to design your website with mobile users in mind. Mobile users are likely to leave websites that do not display properly on their mobile device. They will leave your site and likely find one of your competitors whose site has been designed with them in mind. The “Mobile-friendly” designation also will contribute to a positive click-through-ratio from search results. If your site does not have this designation, this is another opportunity for you to lose a website visitor to your competition. And now with your website rankings being effected, there is yet another opportunity for you to lose website traffic to your competitors. It literally has never been more important to upgrade your website to a mobile friendly responsive design.
With internet search traffic from mobile devices estimated to exceed 50% of all search traffic this year, Google is taking mobile friendliness very seriously. This is a trend that will likely continue as use of the internet from mobile devices will continue to increase. One more example of Google responding to the increase in mobile internet usage is that Google recently mentioned the importance of having your online forms coded to take advantage of Chromes auto-complete feature in order to improve the online experience for mobile users. Filling out online forms from a mobile device can certainly be tedious and Google wants to improve this user experience for users of mobile devices. Look for more recommendations such as this coming from Google and the possibility of these kinds of recommendations impacting your website’s rankings in the future.
It certainly makes business sense to make your website mobile friendly. We have blogged in the past about making your website mobile friendly through responsive design. This is something that Infinity Dental Web has plenty of experience with and that we do on a regular basis for our clients. With all of the benefits of having a mobile responsive website, it is still surprising to see websites that are not mobile friendly. Starting April 21st, these websites that are not mobile friendly will be harder to find in Google mobile search results, many of them likely being pushed to the second and third pages of Google search results and beyond. Your website shouldn’t have to be among those that are negatively effected. Please your mobile website visitors and upgrade your website to a mobile friendly responsive design. You’ll be glad you did.
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