What’s happening on the 21st April 2015?
Google recently announced that from the 21st of this month, the way that search results are ranked on mobile devices will undergo a ‘significant’ change. From that date, if your website is not mobile-friendly, it will drop in the mobile search result rankings.
What’s so special about being mobile-friendly anyway?
Google aims to provide the highest possible user experience – and we’ve all felt the frustration of trying to browse an unresponsive website from a smartphone. That tiny page you need to enlarge and navigate around to see anything? It makes finding and using an ‘old-fashioned’ website a nightmare on a smartphone. Google are now getting serious about rewarding mobile-friendly websites – and punishing the rest.
My website isn’t designed to be mobile-friendly… what can I do?
The bad news is, your website is going to experience a drop in search result rankings on mobile devices after the 21st April. The good news is, there is plenty you can do to improve your website and rescue your search engine rankings.
Companies have a choice between using one website that is mobile-responsive – designed for use on desktops, tablets, and all types of smartphones – or creating a new website for mobile (often shown with m. in front of your domain). For a number of reasons, we recommend a mobile-responsive website – you can see more about the pros and cons of each in our blog post responsive vs mobile websites.
For the moment, you may even get away with doing nothing – that’s if mobile users aren’t important to your business, of course. However, don’t bury your head in the sand over mobile-friendly websites for too long! Smartphones are here to stay and having a mobile-responsive website will become more and more essential to your business.
How can I find out more about this issue?
A good place to start is this handy tool from Google that will quickly tell you if your website is mobile-friendly or not. If you find that your website is NOT mobile-friendly, we may be able to help you. Get in touch to discuss options for how you can improve your website’s usability on smartphones. We’ll be happy to meet with you and suggest the best course of action – it’s free, and it may just save your search rankings too.
Are you ready for the Google Update? Let’s talk!
About FutureLab Web Design
FutureLab specialise in improving the online presence for small and medium businesses in New Zealand. All our websites are designed to be mobile-responsive and provide a high-quality user experience on desktop, tablet and smartphone.
