I’m interested. Are you reading this on a mobile device? A smart phone or a tablet? If so, let me know. I know from analytics that a very large percentage of my traffic is on mobile, I’ll bet yours is too. Generally speaking when I come to a site that is not mobile responsive, I don’t pinch and zoom anymore, I move on. Is that what you do too?
Sometimes Google does what it wants and surprises us, other times they actually give us plenty of warning. That’s what they’ve done with their whole Mobile Responsive campaign.
We’ve had plenty of warnings. And I’ve written a ton about “Mobile Responsive” in the past.
So we can’t really say we didn’t see this coming.
Recently from the Google Webmaster Blog…
“Today we’re announcing that beginning in May, we’ll start rolling out an update to mobile search results that increases the effect of the ranking signal to help our users find even more pages that are relevant and mobile-friendly.“
It’s already half way through May. They’ve dialed up the algorithm and put the screws to the non mobile responsive sites. Are you one of them?
Simply put, if your site does not render properly for a mobile phone they’ll no longer rank you in their mobile search results.
HOW DO I KNOW IF MY SITE IS MOBILE RESPONSIVE?
It’s simple, there’s a tool that you can use from Google HERE or just look at your site on a mobile phone. Does it look like the one on the left or the one on the right?
You shouldn’t have to pinch and zoom to read, the buttons should be big enough that they are easy to click the right one (even with my big fingers) and the menus should be easy to use as well.
When it comes to SEO I often tell people that there’s no magic ON Switch. You simply can’t turn on “The Google”. That’s still very true, but in this case there is a magic OFF Switch. Just have your site not be Mobile Responsive. That’ll do it.
Back to the positive side. Keep writing, keep blogging, keep providing good content.
They even said in their post, “Getting good, relevant answers when you search shouldn’t depend on what device you’re using. You should get the best answer possible, whether you’re on a phone, desktop or tablet.”
Oooh! “Good, relevant answers” – I’ll be talking about that some more but it reminds me of “WHAT CAN YOU USE THE FAQ CUSTOM POST TYPE FOR?“
He's an avid hockey fan, rides a mountain bike, sometimes rides a road bike, has a few motorcycles (he had a really fast one, bought a cool orange one, rode a really slow one, and now,a perfect "BDR Weapon"). If that isn't enough, he makes cheese and sourdough bread, loves strong beer and good red wine, and poorly plays the Mandolin.
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