Did you wake up this morning and feel something wasn’t quite right? Like something had changed? You weren’t quite sure what, but it was something significant! Perhaps even more important than who’d taken the last drop of milk from the fridge?

Ok, so perhaps is wasn’t that melodramatic, but today is a big day at Google – it’s the day they start penalising your site if it’s not mobile friendly.

A reminder of what it’s all about…

Today is the day that Google begin their latest, and one of their most significant algorithm shifts. It will look to rank those sites that don’t have a mobile version lower when someone is searching from a mobile device.

What were their words exactly?

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.”

What does that mean?

Google can tell when someone is searching the web from his or her mobile.

They want to give the best possible results to that searcher.

Mobile sites will give the end user a better experience, and therefore in Google’s eyes, a better result (to be fair you don’t want to be endlessly zooming to read information on a non-mobile friendly site).

Therefore, if your site is not mobile optimised then they will now begin ranking it lower against those that are.

An estimated 30 – 40% of all internet traffic comes from these devices, and it’s a figure that’s increasing at a rapid rate.

Can you afford to rank lower than a competitor for the search terms that bring you business?

If not, you now must be mobile.

What are the options?

There are two ways in which a site can be mobile; the first is by having a mobile specific site. This is a site built specifically for mobile devices.

The second is by having a responsive site; this is where the site augments and responds to the size of the screen (known as the viewport).

This second option is by far the most common these days, and you may well have heard of it.

Wondering if a site is responsive? Pull the top corner of your browser inwards; if the site is responsive it’ll stack and respond to the size of your window.

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/

What do you need to do?

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.

Please do watch your rankings over the next couple weeks and months!