Google’s Mobile-Friendly SEO Update

At the end of April 2015, Google Search has included whether your site is mobile friendly as a factor in where your site ranks against your competitors.

More and more, your potential customers are using mobile devices to search the web. You may have found yourself searching for a business location or researching using your smart phone.

Do you know how many of your visitors are connecting via mobile devices? You should! We typically advise and train our clients to use Google Analytics to not only know which browsers and operating systems people are using, but where they are located geographically. This can help to make additional decisions such as marketing and content to include on your website.

mobile-devices-analytics

Due to the increased usage of mobile devices, and Google’s new Search factors, this change has a significant impact on your site’s ability to rank on mobile devices.

For a webpage to be mobile-friendly, text has to be readable without tapping and zooming, tap targets need to be spaced out appropriately, and the page should not have unplayable content or horizontal scrolling. In a study done this year, it was found that over 40% of Fortune 500 websites are not mobile-friendly.

Important Facts About Google’s Mobile-Friendly SEO Update

  • There will be no impact on your current desktop ranking
  • Only searches done on mobile smartphone devices will be impacted (not tablets)
  • The algorithm is on a page by page basis, some webpages may be mobile friendly while others are not
  • Changes made to your site will be picked up by Google in real time

Find out if your website is mobile-friendly here.

You will get a report. If you do not get an awesome message such as shown below, be sure to contact us today to get your site mobile friendly!

Mobile-Friendly_Test

 

 

 

Best of the Web

Logo of Best of the Web, and online directory submission

 

So, what is BOTW?

It is a web directory that you can submit your site to, for a cost.

Now this is not a service that people generally browse through in order to find your page. Nor is any other directory. So why might you consider it?

It can boost your page rank.  It is a human-edited directory – this fact makes it a better source than other proclaimed paid for links by the likes of Google.

Continue reading