Changes could affect your SEO rankings
We all know that websites have to be mobile-friendly so that the sites that we use, and some of us build, are easily navigable and available on smart phones.
According to mobile squared, the mobile insight specialists, there will be 69m smart phones in use across the UK by the end of 2015. If ever there was a statistic to focus the mind on how we might wish to reach our clients and potential customers mobile squared has just given us 69 million of them.
But what is little known is that internet behemoth Google is sending mass notifications to webmasters warning them of their mobile usability status. What does that mean? Put simply if your website isn’t mobile-friendly then they are giving you notice that it really should be.
Why should you care?
Why are they so concerned about YOUR website and it’s compatibility with the legions of smart phone and tablet users? Because they are about to change how sites without mobile compatibility are ranked and that’s where it starts to affect your business and your way of getting in front of new clients and customers.
Tech site Search Engine Land explains it better than we can: “There are clear signs that a new mobile ranking algorithm is about to launch at Google. Google told us they are experimenting with it since November. They also launched a mobile friendly testing tool, mobile usability reports in Google Webmaster Tools, and mobile-friendly labels in the search results.
“This seems to go beyond the broken mobile site penalty Google had in 2013. It also seems to go beyond having problems with your mobile-friendly site – where it is targeting this communication to sites that are knowingly not mobile-friendly.
“Typically, these are all signs of something big to come on the algorithm side. But we have not been able to get a confirmation from Google on this as of yet.”
According to cobaltink Digital Director, Stephen Hagen, the writing is almost on the wall for sites that have these compatibility issues. He said: “Reviewing your site and ensuring that it complies will ensure that you remain a Google favourite and that your all-important ranking remains where you would like it .. on top!”
For more information about how you can future-proof your site against any potential new Google changes or how to improve your SEO rankings contact stephen.hagen@cobaltink.co.uk