How to Tell If Google Sees Your Website as Mobile Friendly
A couple of weeks ago, Google announced it would start penalizing rankings for websites that aren’t mobile friendly. This isn’t surprising as we’ve been hearing for years that mobile usage continues to increase. People are accessing the internet in a variety of ways on the go and many people might not be aware their websites don’t appear all that fantastic on mobiles devices.
Starting April 21, 2015, Google will incorporate mobile usability into its ranking algorithm. To put it bluntly, if your site isn’t mobile-friendly, your rankings will drop.
I can see it now…Massive riots break out and people run screaming down the streets in terror because the dreaded Google monster reigns its ugly head again! Oh wait, this is reality, where not everyone is obsessed about their tiny corner of the interwebs and actually have lives and businesses to run.
So maybe there won’t be mass chaos on the 21st, but you may see a drop in traffic if your site is affected by the algorithm change.
[su_panel background=”#f4f4f4″ color=”#1a1b1a” url=”https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly”]So how do you know if Google sees your site as mobile-friendly? Enter the handy-dandy Mobile Friendly Test.[/su_panel]
Just click in the box above to open Google’s mobile friendly testing tool. Enter your URL in the tool so Google can scan your page. The results will be pretty clearly and will even contain some helpful information about additional items that may enhance the mobile friendliness of the page.
You may already have noticed, but Google recently started displaying whether a search result includes mobile-friendly pages. This appears when you search Google from a mobile device. This illustrates Google’s increasing emphasis on mobile technology’s growing presence in our lives.
Now what?
If you discovered your website isn’t mobile friendly. Don’t worry. There’s still time to change that before April.
The best way to conquer mobile compatibility is by ensuring your site is responsive. This is the most widely-accepted method currently available. If you need help converting your site, ask Ekcetera for a quote, but act fast. We’ve only got a few openings available for mobile conversions before the deadline.
If your website runs on WordPress, there’s another option available, but only use it as a stop-gap until you can have a web developer make your site responsive. WPTouch has a plugin to instantly serve up a mobile version of your website. Keep in mind, this method isn’t the best (as it’s actually presenting different code on top of your site). But, it will do in a pinch until you can set aside more time and money to make your site mobile-friendly.
Questions on Google’s coming update? I’m happy to answer below. Spread the love and share with others you know before their sites take a hit.