Around the end of February, Google announced their next big shakeup; incorporating mobile-friendliness as a component of ranking signals when it serves up search results to users. Today is the day Google rolls out their algorithm alteration. It’s being touted as the biggest change to Google’s search algorithms in at least 3 years – but that’s not the important part; the big bit is what this means for you.
It means that not only does your website need to be informative, original, helpful and user-friendly – but, if you want it to show up in searches made by prospects using smartphones, then you need to ensure its mobile-ready as well. This also means you can now look seriously at prospects coming into your sales funnel from mobile phone searches. A market force with enough momentum to induce Google-level changes can also represent an important opportunity for you and your business.
What does making your site mobile-friendly mean exactly? For your website to be considered mobile phone friendly, it must have:
- Well spaced tap targets.
- Text you can read without needing to zoom in or tap too much.
- Easily playable content.
- No, or minimal, horizontal scrolling required.
The mobile-friendliness, or otherwise, of your website will only affect your site’s Google rankings for searches made on mobile devices. This means that your website’s rankings will DIFFER depending on the device your prospects are using to find you. If your users search for your business on a laptop, the listed results – and your site’s ranking in those listings – will NOT be the same as if they had searched on their iPhone.
While these changes only impact searches made via Smartphones (not tablets – at least, not yet), business owners should be aware that the use of mobile phones to search and locate businesses is on the rise. The number of Smartphone users is set to exceed 2 billion worldwide by next year. These days, hardly anyone is chained to a desk to do business, and commuters especially tend to search for what they want in their ‘downtime’ at bus stops and train stations.
If you’d like to know more about whether or not your website is mobile-friendly – or how to make it more so – contact one of our experts for a consultation today. We’ll tell you how Google’s new changes are likely to impact your site’s search engine rankings – and what you can do to augment your results through the help of effective SEO strategies.
Is your website mobile-ready? How do you think it will be affected by Google’s changes? If you have any questions for our experts, enter them into the Comment Box!
