On April 21, 2015, a change is coming to Google’s search algorithm that has the potential to change how your website is found online.
Google will now use mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This means that if your website is not mobile-friendly, it will lose ranking on mobile searches.
On February 26, 2015, Google unveiled in a blog post their plan to start penalizing websites that do not incorporate mobile-friendly design. They will do this by drastically limiting the appearance in mobile search results for all websites that are not mobile-friendly. The longer that website owners wait to upgrade their websites, the more detrimental this change could be for their business.
In Google’s Own Words
Don’t just take our word for it. This announcement comes directly from the Google Webmaster Central Blog. In Google’s own words:
“Starting April 21, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results. Consequently, users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices.”
In other words, if your website is not mobile-friendly, smartphone users won’t find it in a Google search. Period.
Google is finally acting
Google has been warning webmasters of this change since early 2014. They have published articles on their blog outlining the benefits of having a mobile-optimized website, they have released tools that allow you to check your user interface and how well it performs on mobile devices, and they have stated many times that responsive design is their preferred method of optimizing websites to be mobile-friendly.
With nearly 40% of all online searches coming from mobile devices, this is not a surprising update. In fact, we think Google took a bit too long to make this change. Consumers are used to being able to find what they are looking for in a few taps of their smartphone. With this change, smartphone users will no longer need to weed through pages of outdated websites, or pinch-and-zoom to find what they are looking for.
Go Mobile-Friendly
If you have not yet upgraded your website to be mobile-friendly, this should be the final push to get you to make the change. Iceberg Web Design specializes in a website design technique known as responsive design. This is a programming style that allows your website to display optimally on all screens: from the largest wide-screen monitor to tablets and the smallest smartphone.
Don’t lose business to your mobile-friendly competition. Contact Iceberg Web Design today for a free, no-obligation consultation. We would love to tell you more about our Anoka MN website design company, and talk about how we can help keep your website from dropping off the mobile search results.
Will this change the way you do business?
Let us know how this change impacts your business. Comment below, or contact our Minneapolis website development firm to let us know how you plan to update your website for this change!
