Recent changes in Google’s search rankings make it imperative for business owners to test their website for mobile-friendliness or risk seeing their business search ranking decline.
On April 21, 2015, Google released a new mobile-friendly ranking algorithm that aims to punish websites that are not mobile friendly to a lower search ranking.
Given that currently 88% of U.S. consumers perform local searches via a mobile device every day, Google’s new search ranking guidelines will have significant impact on local businesses.
What To Do
- Perform Google’s Mobile Friendly test to find out if your website is considered mobile-friendly. Visit Google’s test page or just search “mobile friendly test” to find the site.
- If the test result is “Awesome! This page is mobile friendly” there are still upgrades to consider building into your website to raise your mobile search results and improve the functionality and readability of content on a mobile device.
- If the test result is “Not mobile-friendly” you need to act quickly before the Google algorithm pushes you down in search ranking. You’ll need to upgrade your website to a platform that supports responsive design. This means your website will immediately adjust dynamically to the size of the smartphone (or tablet) screen.
- Contact your web designer or your MVN sales representative who can assist you in testing your site or upgrading your website to avoid having your local search results suffer or to improve your mobile search visibility.
Savvy business owners see this Google ranking upgrade as an opportunity to leap over competitors and grow their market share by providing a better user experience for customers and improve business search rankings.