Is your Website Responsive? It Might Be Time

Beginning April 21, Google will use mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal in search results, rewarding websites that are fully optimized for mobile platforms. This is very important for business owners with a website who want to continue to have a strong Google ranking.

The move by Google doesn’t come as a surprise considering more than 60 percent of all Google searches originate from a mobile device. These changes will make it easier for mobile users to find relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices creating a better user experience.

What does mobile-friendly mean?

Even if your site appears on a mobile device, that doesn’t mean it’s considered mobile-friendly. Google recommends responsive web design as the industry best practice for websites. A responsive website seamlessly adapts itself to whichever device it is being viewed from. While responsive web design should be your ultimate goal, creating a fully responsive site can present a challenge for many small business owners. However, simply using Google’s guidelines to optimize your existing website for mobile platforms will help greatly in the meantime.

1. Start by looking over Google’s guide to mobile-friendly websites.
2. Want to see how your site stacks up? Take this simple mobile- friendly test on Google. This can help you understand the basics of how mobile browsers and Google itself will view your content.
3. You or your web developer can generate a Mobile Usability Report to help identity any issues with your site when viewed on a mobile device.

How does Google determine a page to be mobile-friendly?

There are five areas of mobile usability that Google looks at when determining whether to reward a webpage with a mobile-friendly label in mobile search results. Pages with this label will benefit from a ranking boost when the new algorithm launches later this month. Here’s a list from Google webmaster tools help:

1. A defined viewing area (or viewport) that adjusts to the device’s screen size.
2. Content that flows in the viewport, so that users don’t have to scroll horizontally or pinch the screen in order to see the entire page.
3. Fonts that scale for easier reading on small screens.
4. Easy-to-touch elements (e.g. buttons) that are well-spaced from other touch elements.
5. Visual design and motion driven by mobile-friendly technology.

Taking the steps towards building a responsive site will benefit your business greatly as more and more customers searching for windshield repair or headlight restoration from a mobile device grows.