Is YOUR Website Mobile Friendly ? – (and should you care)

You may have become aware over the last month or so, of some significant changes to the way that Google Search works on Mobile Devices (smart phones and tablets).  From 21st April 2015, Google will start excluding websites that are NOT Mobile Friendly from their Mobile Search results.

This means that if your site is not Mobile Friendly, not only will it lose rankings for your important keywords, it will not even show up (on Google Mobile Search results) for your own business name.  Your site will still be accessible if someone types the URL direct, or clicka a link (from a web page or email for example), but you will stop getitng any traffic from mobile search.

Why Should I Care ?

Even if your product/services aren’t directly relevant to mobile users,  or are not specifically targeting users of mobile devices, it is likely that a significant number of your users are accessing your website from a smart phone or tablet.  We typically see between 15% and 25% mobile traffic for most of the sites we look at, and for those with a highly mobile client base this can be as high as 90%.

If you don’t know how many of your site visitors are using mobile devices, check your analytics data.  If you don’t have Google analytics running, or don’t know how to access or interpret your data, feel free to contact us for assistance.

If your mobile traffic is less that 5%, then this is probably not an issue for you, but  if your site is not mobile friendly, it is  likely that you will lose a significant chunk of your traffic.

Is my Site Mobile Friendly?

Many website owners, have already received an email from Google that their site is NOT mobile friendly – but if you have NOT  registered your website with Webmaster Tools, you would not have been sent this notification.

Accoring to Google, being Mobile Friendly is not a grey area… you can’t be “nearly” mobile friendly… It is black and white – either your site is friendly (and you will continue to be listed in their mobile search index) or it is not (and your site will be excluded).

The best way to check whether your site is Mobile Friendly is to use Google’s Online Mobile Friendly Test Tool.  This will analyse your site and let you know one way or another…. and if it isn’t, will offer some guidance as to what you could/should do to fix the problem.

How Can I Fix It ?

Almost all new WordPress themes these days are “responsive” which means they automatically adapt their layout depending on the type of device being used.  For the last couple of years InaDay have been recommending the use of mobile responsive themes in all our workshops – so the majority of our clients and students will already be OK.

If you have a WordPress site, and fail the  Mobile Friendly Test, then your best course of action is probably to choose another theme for your site (and make sure that it is responsive).

If your site is not already using WordPress (or some other CMS which allows for responsive themes), then you should probably consider having your site redeveloped using WordPress.

If your site has a very high percentage of mobile users, you could also consider developing a mobile specific version of your website.

If you are concerned about your site, and are not sure how to proceed,
or what your best options are, please feel free to contact us for a chat.