Google ranks mobile friendly websites higher in search – what it means to you.
There’s been a lot of talk about Google and mobile (or responsive) websites lately.
As of April 21st 2015, Google is considering the ‘mobile friendliness’ of a website while ranking it search results. How your business appears online is a huge part of your marketing, so it’s important that you don’t get left behind or miss out on fundamental changes to how Google works.
To find out if your website is mobile-friendly, use Google’s test: https://www.google.co.uk/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/
If your website is mobile friendly, you can breathe a little easier. If it isn’t, it’s time to take action and look at how you can address this.
Why not check out your own website on a phone, tablet or laptop, to see how it appears. The content should adjust to suit the user’s screen. A website that is responsive will adapt to fit the screen size, without the user having to zoom in to read text or use the navigation.
Google is giving priority to websites that are easy to use across multiple devices – and it makes sense to do this, with more and more people using the web on their phones and tablets. We are passed the mobile Tipping Point (check out http://www.smartinsights.com/mobile-marketing/mobile-marketing-analytics/mobile-marketing-statistics/)!
Facebook has surpassed 1 billion registered accounts, a huge number of people only use Facebook on their smart phones, so when you’re sharing a link to your website, such as a new product or blog article, users want a seamless transition from their Facebook experience to your website experience. It is essential to give them what they expect, what they are familiar with, rather than going to a website they are going to struggle to use and inevitably give up on.
I will be covering how your blog should appear to mobile users in an upcoming article, but for now, a standard responsive website is the goal.
How to make my website responsive
If your website isn’t responsive, there’s a couple of possible quick fixes. If you are using a premade template on one of the big Content Management Systems (WordPress, Joomla, Drupal), you should check whether there is a template update – the chances are the latest version of your template will be mobile friendly.
Alternatively, you can get plugins that will create a mobile-version of your website with the click of a button. These plugins won’t apply your custom design, but they offer a short term solution.
If you have a custom designed website, you will need to speak to your web developer, who will be able to provide a selection of solutions for your website. It may be simple to add extra functionality to your website to make it responsive, or it may be time for a new design.
Whatever your situation is, it is important to remember your website is an extremely useful tool to promote and market your business, making it vital to invest time and money.
If you are looking for more advise, please email us, we are happy to point you in the right direction.
Our new website
We have recently updated the Indever website, perhaps a little late to the party, but we now have a fully responsive design – developed from scratch as a WordPress theme.