Google SEO Update: Is your website mobile friendly?
Small business owners are being warned about a new Google SEO update coming in April 2015.
The major change is related to evaluating whether a website is responsive to mobile viewing or not. Non-responsive sites that aren’t friendly to mobile viewing with likely get penalized in their rankings as early as April 21.
The exact quote from Google is as follows:
“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 optimised for their devices,” said Google.
“Starting today, we will begin to use information from indexed apps as a factor in ranking for signed-in users who have the app installed. As a result, we may now surface content from indexed apps more prominently in search.”
This change has been anticipated for quite some time, but it still will catch many people off guard. Some websites may see their traffic decline by as much as 30-60%
While Google uses over 200 ranking factors, it’s clear that a site’s “mobile friendliness” will be a huge factor going forward.
If a user is on a mobile device like a cell phone or tablet, then a mobile-friendly website can be expected to have a much easier time getting ranked than a non-mobile friendly site.
If you are unsure whether your website complies, we at The Optimacy Group can help you.
In addition, Google offers the following guides to test whether your website is in compliance:
Google Guide to Mobile Friendly Sites
Let us know if we can help you further by contacting us at info@optimacygroup.com
