Mobile is Now a Major Factor in Ranking Your Website

If your company website is not mobile-ready, more than likely, you’ve been missing out on potential customers. When mobile users try to access websites that are not mobile responsive, it’s a truly frustrating experience.

Most of these searchers move on to your competitors’ websites and never return to yours. So as you can guess, these are lost leads.

But now, there’s another crucial reason to mobilize your website; Google is making some changes that will negatively impact any website that is not mobile-ready.

What is changing?

Mobile-friendliness has been a factor in Google search for several years now; but no one knows exactly to what degree. However, Google has announced that mobile-friendliness will now be heavily weighed as a ranking signal.

On February 26, 2015, Google wrote this statement on their Webmaster Tools blog: “This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results.”

A Google mobile algorithm update will start on April 21, 2015 and will roll-out over a period of a few days to one week – influencing the organic results for web searches performed on mobile devices.

The search industry has labeled this update as “Google Mice” and “Mobilegeddon.”

Why the change?

More than 60% of all Google searches are now performed on mobile devices. So Google’s overall goal with this update is to provide a faster, smoother experience for mobile searchers.

When mobile users try to access websites that are not mobile-ready, it’s pretty much a waste of time. In order to match mobile users with the most beneficial websites based on their searches, this algorithm update will ensure that mobile-friendly websites get the most search engine attention.

What does this mean for your business?

Basically, if your site is not mobile-ready, it will suffer lower rankings on Google when users search for your type of products and services on their mobile devices.

On the flip side, if your website is mobile-friendly, you may experience an increase in rankings; especially in cases where most of your competitors haven’t optimized their websites for mobile.

What should you do?

1. Make sure your website is mobile-ready. This may sound like a no-brainer, but just because your website looks fine on a desktop or laptop does not mean that it is the same for mobile devices.

   Google has provided a free “Mobile Friendliness” tool where you can test your website for mobile.

   Here’s the link:

   https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/

   You can tell within a few minutes whether or not your site meets the basic standards for mobile optimization.

2. If your website is not mobile-ready, it’s time to change that. Whether you go with a complete mobile-responsive website re-design or a stand-alone mobile website, take measures as soon as possible to ensure your business is not negatively impacted by this major update.

   Having a website that is optimized for mobile viewing is critical. Not only is it important for providing convenience to your mobile customers and prospects; it’s now a major factor in how well these mobile consumers can find your website when searching online for your type of products and services.