It’s all a buzz right now, Google has said that they are going to make mobile-friendliness a ranking signal:
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.
To get help with making a mobile-friendly site, check out our guide to mobile-friendly sites. If you’re a webmaster, you can get ready for this change by using the following tools to see how Googlebot views your pages:
If you want to test a few pages, you can use the Mobile-Friendly Test.
If you have a site, you can use your Webmaster Tools account to get a full list of mobile usability issues across your site using the Mobile Usability Report.
I know it’s not the zombie apocalypse OH MY GOD, but it’s a little omg for sure!
What does this mean for you? Beginning late next month, if your site is not mobile-friendly, Google’s new algorithm may rank you lower in search results. If you’ve worked hard to get your site to appear on the first page of a search, because honestly what blog owner hasn’t Googled themselves to find out where they are, this could potentially be a very bad thing.
Both of my sites utilize a responsive design making them mobile-friendly, I just recently made sure of it back in January when I updated both of my site designs.
In the past, for custom WordPress and Blogger designs I’ve left it up to my clients to decide if they want to display their sites as responsive or non-responsive. Sometimes the content and design elements didn’t translate well to a responsive/mobile-friendly view and they would opt to keep the blog whole or intact when viewing on mobile devices. Now though, I probably recommend including the responsive design, rather than not.
The majority of my custom WordPress designs are created using Genesis themes which are mobile responsive.
And, all of my custom Blogger designs, and premade Blogger templates in my Etsy store, feature customized responsive design elements so that they look FANTASTIC on mobile devices.
If you’re using one of my premade templates and want to activate the mobile version of the template go to Template > click on the cog under the Mobile option > select Yes. Show mobile template on mobile devices. > select Custom > Save.
Are you mobile-friendly? Do you want to be? I can help you with that!
Bobbi Jo says
I checked and mine is, thanks to you, Carrie!
lissa says
I’ve known about this feature and I’ve always had it on, but I’ve never even thought about it. I suppose it would be useful for those who wants their blog to rank high but as for me, it didn’t matter as much but it’s good know that’s an option.
hope you have a lovely day.
lissa recently posted… Creative Tuesdays: Bouquet
Sarah Lusby says
Hey Carrie! Thanks for the heads-up. What’s Google gonna do next?! Think about all those poor people without responsive sites…
Kristy Bernales says
When targeting the mobile users, you need to create a website from which they derive user ease, comfort and value. one important fact which you should consider: users are searching for an user-friendly, outstanding digital experience, and businesses or websites who are prepared to be going to give everything will survive in the end.
Kristy Bernales recently posted… How to Design an Outstanding Home-page ?
Jessica says
I purchased your blog template some months ago but noticed recently when I updated my settings for mobile friendly my Blog header is missing. When you view my page you only read the tagline right away. You have to keep scrolling up to see the main header. How can I fix this?
[email protected] says
Nothing has to majorly happened right now, but I’m sure Google will have made some changes in upcoming days.