Mobile-Friendly Websites
With April 21st approaching fast, It seems that there is a lot of uproar in the community about what is going on with Google and how it will affect their websites. With time running short, marketing companies are jumping on the opportunity to take advantage of clients concerned for their Google search ranking. John Mueller, Webmaster Trends Analyst for Google posted:
“It’s great to get people motivated to make their mobile-friendly websites, but we’re not going to be removing sites from search just because they’re not mobile-friendly.”
However, there is a trend occurring in companies offering “SEO” through e-mail marketing that is less than honest. A major example of this has been by GTxcel, which sent an email claiming that sites could be “delisted” from search results simply for not having a mobile friendly site. This story was originally shared by Ashley Berman Hale on Google+ shedding light on this “unnecessary drama and not-cool-marketing.” (source below)

What Everyone Is Saying About Mobile-Friendly Websites
Luckily, the truth is out on the google blogspot. On Thursday, February 26th the Webmaster Central Blog explained what would be happening to the search results on April 21st.
“Starting April 21, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results. Consequently, users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices.”
This change is more of a benefit than a deterrent, because mobile-ready sites naturally have a bigger audience. For small business in particular, many people will visit your website on their phone before giving you a call. This is why Google will be giving higher ranks to websites that are optimized for the devices they will most likely be viewed on.
Creating a responsive site holds many benefits. Not only does your audience expand, it now will help your rank on Google. With that said, if you need to optimize your site to the new web standards, Click4Corp offers the services needed for true, organic SEO. How do you know if your site is ready for the 21st? Easy, you can test it yourself quickly and easily thanks to the Google webmaster tools. Google has provided a simple check to see if your site is mobile ready which you can access here: Google Webmasters Tools
The new changes are big, and calling for awesome new mobile friendly sites popping up everywhere. We hope that, as John Mueller put it, Click4Corp will be the “savvy SEOs” that help many websites become awesome.
Sources:
- Google Webmaster Central Blog: “Finding More Mobile-Friendly Search Results”
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2015/02/finding-more-mobile-friendly-search.html - +JohnMueller: April 14, 2015
https://plus.google.com/u/0/+JohnMueller/posts/4mhwD2vTiHw - +AshleyBermanHale: April 14, 2015
https://plus.google.com/+AshleyBermanHale/posts/7wx9ZLLLDHJ - Mobile-friendly Test
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/
Click4Corp – Creating Mobile-Friendly Websites