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Google’s Upcoming Mobile Search Algorithm Change

With changes in Google’s mobile search algorithm at hand, it’s time to make websites more mobile friendly. Google new mobile ranking algorithm becomes effective on April 21, 2015. This update will reflect the search engine’s new focus on mobile technology.

With fast increases in mobile web traffic, updating websites to become mobile-friendly must be completed or consequences of poor SEO performance will occur in the form of poor rankings.

Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test

This change will favor more mobile-friendly sites when mobile searches are performed. But how will site owners know whether their sites are mobile friendly? Google offers a variety of tools to facilitate the process:

Google offers a testing tool that only requires a web address to test whether the site is formatted for easy mobile use.

Pages are tested individually, so start with top-ranked pages and move through the site from there. The tool gives a “yes” or “no” answer on a url-by-url basis.

What to Do If Your Site Doesn’t Pass

If a website isn’t optimized for mobile use, site owners have options:

 

• Use a plug-in or third-party software to make a site more friendly to mobile devices.
• Or adapt an existing site to better facilitate mobile use on your own or by working with a developer.

Google offers several suggestions for each option.

To further optimize a site for mobile friendliness involves the development of a responsive design. Responsiveness means that a site will determine the device type accessing a website and then adjust the format of the site to the device.

Also, a site’s call to action should be easily visible, contact forms should be easy to fill out and submit and navigation should be simplified.

Because this change only affects mobile searches, some site owners wonder whether or not they need to worry about updating their websites.In 2014,mobile data use rose drastically, with mobile traffic exceeding computer-based web traffic for most of the year. Ignoring this sector of the market has great potential to affect how well a business performs.

Updating a website to be more mobile friendly doesn’t need to be an arduous chore. Use the testing tools and then follow Google’s advice for improving the mobile experience.

Most importantly, get this job done before April 21st when the new algorithm rolls out!

 

Test Your Site Right Now to See If It’s Mobile Friendly

Editor’s Note: Don’t forget to test your site right now at the link below:

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/

 

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Expert Feature: Is Your Website Mobile Aware? If Not, Why Not? (baybusinesshelp.com)