As you may have heard, Google recently announced its stance on mobile-friendly websites. Starting April 21st, brands that don’t update their website may experience less site traffic than they were organically seeing before for new and returning visitors. This is because Google can’t serve up the results or website because the site doesn’t have the same credibility or relevancy.
Why does this matter?
- More and more web visits are coming from mobile devices, including 1/3 of all online traffic in North America and over half of online shopping. That means it’s important to Google that its users be able to see you no matter how they’re looking at your content. It’s a good thing for your business too. Users will leave your site more rapidly if you aren’t optimizing your design for their experience.
- Mobile-friendly websites will see even more of this traffic because they will appear more in search results. Needless to say, if your site is mobile-friendly then Google will bump you up in the search results, especially when people are searching from their phones.
- More than just web visitors…mobile-friendly websites have lower bounce rates and higher conversion rates. Consumers are shopping, viewing and browsing from their phones. You don’t want them to leave your site just because you didn’t make it mobile-friendly.
Google offers resources to help in this change, including a “Mobile-Friendly Test.” April 21 is coming up quickly so we are urging sites to switch to a mobile responsive design, but the first step could be optimizing current web pages for mobile devices.
More information on Google’s stance can be found here.
