Mobile Friendly Websites

Today’s SmartPhones can display any website. This does not mean that your website meets the definition of being “mobile-responsive”. A mobile-responsive website is one that displays differently on SmartPhones than it does on a desktop, making it easier to navigate without zooming in and out. While most of the WordPress websites we build are mobile-responsive, many ecommerce websites, especially complex wholesale sites are not. The reason is that they are designed for complex ordering – not casual browsing on a phone. But there is a problem…

On April 21st, Google created an update to their search engine called “Moblegeddon”, which affect search results from mobile devices. Basically, if your site does not meet the Google mobile test, your site will not be displayed in the search results when someone is searching from a mobile device. Search results from laptops and desktops are unaffected. Which means, if you have a complex wholesale ecommerce site, this may be a mute point – your customers probably aren’t ordering from you via their SmartPhones anyways. Per Google:

“This update:

Affects only search rankings on mobile devices
Applies to individual pages, not entire websites

While the mobile-friendly change is important, we still use a variety of signals to rank search results. The intent of the search query is still a very strong signal — so even if a page with high quality content is not mobile-friendly, it could still rank high if it has great content for the query.”

In other words, mobile-friendliness won’t be the sole factor in determining search result placement, especially if you have great content. Content is still the most important factor, along with things such as the number of sites linking back to your site.And unlike past Google algorithm changes, this change doesn’t affect entire sites, but just individual pages – so you could just have your homepage be mobile-friendly and still not lose search traffic.

However, if you are concerned about whether or not your site is mobile friendly, you can test it with the Google mobile tester here:

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

If your site fails (which it might if you have a complex wholesale ecommerce site as mentioned), then you can quickly convert it into a mobile-friendly site for free. Simply go to:

http://www.shareasale.com/r.cfm?B=523421&U=968694&M=49768&urllink=

Scroll down until you see this screen, then enter your domain name: