Remember in college when you had a class you weren't too excited about and maybe skipped once in a while but then realized in the middle of the night as you were going to bed that you had a major assignment due or a midterm?
Maybe not everyone out there slacked off like I did... but that was just one class, one particular semester. I sort of kept blowing it off and it came back to bite me one day but I did end up passing it.
Anyway, we know some website owners out there are in that situation now. There's basically a deadline to make sure their website is mobile responsive and it's coming up. The assignment is due:
Make Sure Your Website is Responsive by April 21, 2015 (webstix.com)
Previously, everyone knew this was coming but there was no date. Now there's a date:
Finding more mobile-friendly search results (googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com)
Starting April 21, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results. Consequently, users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices.
It's time to seriously plan on doing a website conversion to make sure it's mobile responsive. Your website needs to be found on search engines and without that design change, your rankings and traffic could plummet.
Google Confirms Intentions for Mobile Search – What Now? (searchenginewatch.com)
Google is providing a timeline to encourage those who haven’t already adapted their websites to mobile to begin making this transition. This means that you should work toward having a mobile-friendly website by April 21 because it is apparent that Google intends to reward mobile-friendly websites with better rankings in mobile search. Likewise, websites that are not mobile-friendly may very well experience a dramatic decline in mobile rankings.
[...]
Up to now, having a mobile-friendly website has been a competitive advantage. However, with this announcement, I predict mobile-friendly websites will quickly become the norm as organizations try to stay relevant in mobile search. The competitive advantage will then be given to those who provide visitors with the best mobile-experience.
It is also possible that responsive websites will be given preference in Google Search over dedicated mobile sites. Google has long touted responsive design as its preferred mobile solution, because it believes responsive design provides a better user-experience and because it’s less prone to errors than dedicated mobile sites.
[...]
If you don’t yet have a mobile-friendly website, it’s time to get to work.
More and more traffic is coming from all those mobile devices people have in their pockets and on their coffee tables when they're watching TV. Searches from those devices should be results that look good on devices. It's the simple... it's the user experience.
If you're getting to this late in the game, I encourage you to contact Webstix today and get your project scheduled. If you haven't had a website redesign in the last few years, then there are other things you'll benefit from, too. The rise of responsive website design has brought on the development of lots of great tools and technologies that makes websites run faster and better. NOW is the time to stop waiting and make this important switch. We have options to help make it affordable for you, too!
-Tony
