If your website isn’t mobile-friendly, now is the time to change that. Starting April 21, Google will be updating their use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This means that mobile searches will be affected all over the world and will significantly impact your business in the search results. If you want to stay ahead of the game, a mobile site is practically mandatory now.

Everyone is using their mobile devices nowadays to search for local businesses. Many users will attempt to search for a service, visit a company’s website and see that isn’t mobile friendly, then go search elsewhere. Consumers are concerned with getting information as quickly as possible, and they see unresponsive sites on their mobile device as an inconvenience that isn’t keeping up with modern trends. In the past, it was easy to overlook the value of a mobile website because it wasn’t crucial to search engine optimization. With this new update, businesses without a mobile site will fall behind their competition online.

The official press release from Google gives the following advice:

“To check if your site is mobile-friendly, you can examine individual pages with the Mobile-Friendly Test or check the status of your entire site through the Mobile Usability report in Webmaster Tools. If your site’s pages aren’t mobile-friendly, there may be a significant decrease in mobile traffic from Google Search. But have no fear, once your site becomes mobile-friendly, we will automatically re-process (i.e., crawl and index) your pages.  You can also expedite the process by using Fetch as Google with Submit to Index, and then your pages can be treated as mobile-friendly in ranking.”
-Google Webmaster Central Blog

So how can you prepare for this update? The easiest and most efficient way is to hire an Internet marketing company to build a mobile website for you and make it responsive. A company like KM Guru in Joplin, MO can create and optimize an aesthetically pleasing mobile site that will ensure you’re place in the top Google search results. Mobile websites that are built on the WordPress platform are simplistic in design and pretty to look at. They allow mobile users to view general information on the website, call the business directly from their phone, provide users with directions and location information, and more. Google’s Mobilegeddon may sound like a daunting update, but with the help of an experienced professional, your mobile site will be ready for the change.