Making sure your website is mobile friendly
Mobile users account for approximately 30-40% of the visitors to your website, and depending on the nature of your business, it could be more (Lipsman).
Why does this matter? Because almost half of your visitors access your website with a mobile device, and it is increasing each year.
Have you ever tried to look at a website on a smartphone or a tablet? What kind of experience did you have? Perhaps you had to expand the text area so you could read it better.
At Pleth, all of our new websites are built mobile responsive, meaning from the time your website is launched, it is mobile responsive.
We are a little obsessed with this too. We spend a lot of time, with different sets of eyes, evaluating the website to make sure it is mobile responsive. It’s our goal to make sure when visitors view your website on a mobile device, they have a good experience.
Google’s Mobile Friendly Update
Google has announced its plans, as of next week, to change the algorithm for mobile search results to reward websites that use a mobile responsive design. This has understandably left some businesses scrambling.
According to Business Insider, several businesses are will be affected (O’Reilly). Search Engine Land offers the dire warning that this change by Google will have more of an effect than recent updates Penguin and Panda (Schwartz). The impact will be large in spite of that fact that is a change to mobile search results:
Although Google’s new formula won’t affect searches on desktop and laptop computers, it will have a huge influence on how and where people spend their money, given that more people are relying on their smartphones to compare products in stores and look for restaurants. That’s why Google’s new rating system is being billed by some search experts as “Mobile-geddon.” (“Google Embraces”)
These changes are set to roll out on April 21, 2015. Some things to note are:
- It does not affect the search results on desktop.
- You can use a Mobile Readiness tool by Google to check your website. https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/
- You don’t need a mobile app to be responsive.
- You don’t need a mobile site or domain to be responsive.
- For more information about what this means for website owners, check out this article from Moz. http://moz.com/blog/9-things-about-googles-mobile-friendly-update
Is your website mobile responsive? If not, now is the time to begin talking with a skilled developer about making this crucial update to your site.
If you have Google Analytics installed on your website, check Audience > Mobile > Overview in your dashboard. This will give you a breakdown of Desktop, Mobile and Tablet. Add the percentage of Mobile and Tablet and you will see how many of your visitors are using a mobile device.
Trust us. Having a mobile-friendly website—a responsive website—matters (Meyers).
Conclusion
Don’t wait to get started. The need to have a responsive website is here to stay. More people are using mobile devices to search the Internet than ever before, and the number will only continue to grow. In fact, there was a tipping point in 2014. Users began using mobile devices to search the Internet more than desktop computers (Bosomworth).
Pleth can help you get started. Sit down with one of our representatives, who can show you how a mobile responsive website will benefit your business.
Sources
Bosomworth, Danyl. “Statistics On Mobile Usage and Adoption to Inform Your Mobile Marketing Strategy.” Smart Insights. Smart Insights, 15 Jan. 2015. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.
“Google Embraces ‘Mobile Friendly’ Sites in Search Shake-Up.” Fortune. Time, 17 Apr. 2015. Web. 17 Apr. 2015.
Krum, Cindy. “9 Things You Need to Know About Google’s Mobile-Friendly Update.” Moz. Moz, 6 Apr. 2015. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.
Lipsman, Andrew. “Major Mobile Milestones in May: Apps Now Drive Half of All Time Spent on Digital.” comScore. comScore, 25 June 2014. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.
Meyers, Peter J. “Why Mobile Matters – Now.” Moz. Moz, 8 July 2014. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.
O’Reilly, Lara. “A Bunch of Big Companies Are About to Get Punished By Google’s Latest Search Algorithm Update.” Business Insider. Business Insider, 15 Apr. 2015. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.
Schwartz, Barry. “How Big is Google’s Mobile-Friendly Algorithm? Bigger Than Panda or Penguin.” Search Engine Land. Search Engine Land, 17 Mar. 2015. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.