SMALL BUSINESS TIP #1: The Google Mobile Friendly Test

If your website is not mobile friendly—AKA responsive—it’s extremely likely that you are losing potential customers. The good news is that it’s quick and easy to check if your site is responsive using the Google Mobile Friendly Test.

On April 21, 2015, Google released a new version of their search algorithm that punishes website pages that don’t deliver a user-friendly experience from mobile devices. Typical symptoms of an outdated website include unreadable text, frustrating navigation, or pages that load too slowly or not at all.

Why the change? Google wants to do the same thing you do—give their customers the best possible experience. The less frustrating a Google search is, the happier the searcher is, and the more likely they’ll use Google again.

Good News from Google

The news isn’t all bad. Here are four nuggets of good news:

• This change will only affect searches done from smartphones and tablets, not those from a desktop or laptop computer.
• Each page on a website is judged individually. If a specific page is unfriendly, they don’t punish your entire site.
• If you correct an un-friendly page, Google will re-rank it in “real-time.” [Note: Vice versa is also true.]
• Word has it that super high-ranking pages will not slammed by the algorithm.

Take the Google Mobile Friendly Test

Click on this link and, starting with your Home page, check each page on your website:

If Google says your pages fail, don’t panic. Check out their recommendations listed below the test results—it may just be as simple as updating your theme.

If the recommendations make your head spin, give us a call. We’ll check it out and give you an honest recommendation as to the best plan of action. Our goal is to make the process not only painless, but exciting as well.