Many local businesses across Devon and Cornwall will be unaware that they are risking losing potential enquiries and trade by not having a mobile website by 21 April 2015.

Google has officially announced that from this date they will be penalizing websites that are not mobile friendly in their search results.

This means that if your site is not responsive or mobile friendly, you could risk seeing it rank far lower than it currently does when someone searches on a smart phone.

What have Google Actually said?

“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.”

The important bit – how much could it impact your business?

We’re certainly not scaremongering here.  Remember, this will only have an impact on your site if the person is searching from their mobile, rather than their desktop computer.

How many people is that?

On average around 32% of all internet traffic now comes from a smart phone.  We find that on average this is about right for our clients, but we have seen it go above 50%, depending on the industry and target market.

The important thing to remember here is that if your competitor is mobile friendly and you are not, then you’ll be at a disadvantage.

Not sure if your site is mobile friendly?

Try this useful tool from Google – they’ll tell you all you need to know:

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/

Are they serious about this?

Google have been sending emails to website owners (through their webmaster tool account) to warn them if their site isn’t already mobile friendly so all indications are that they will be updating their algorithm and mobile will be a bigger part of where your site ranks when they’re on their phone.

Remember, Google wants to give the visitor the best possible results; a site that doesn’t work for their device isn’t going to be popular.

What do you need to do?

Ideally you need to be getting a responsive or mobile version of your site.  If you’d like to chat through your options, or discuss how this could impact your business please feel free to give us a no-obligation call.