Is your website reponsive?
Do you know what that means? As per wiki, it means
“Responsive web design (RWD) is an approach to web design aimed at crafting sites to provide an optimal viewing experience—easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling—across a wide range of devices (from desktop computer monitors to mobile phones).”
As of April 21st, Google has announced they will be expanding their use of a site’s mobile-friendliness as a key-ranking signal. This change is going to affect all mobile searches, in all languages around the world and impact search results significantly.
As a result of this significant change, Google has been sending notifications to all the webmasters who have existing non-mobile friendly websites. The message also states that the pages will be affected in search results for smartphone users.
Some of the most notable changes include:
- The Google bot has to be allowed to crawl JavaScript and CSS in order to pass the mobile-friendly test
- The mobile friendliness is determined by the page level, rather than site wide
- Tablets are not being affected
- Google is working with a dedicated mobile index
The fact is that savvy webmasters already have these changes in effect. Google has been telling us for years that it was coming. However, with this latest announcement, there are a number of webmasters who have a compelling reason to take action.
Now you have to decide if implementing a mobile site or responsive site is right for you. Mobile sites can be customized for mobile users, and they provide a cheaper and easier design. However, responsive designs are more flexible and the configuration that is recommended by Google; however, it does cost more upfront.
The right option is really going to depend on what your site does. The key is to ensure that your website is relevant, helpful and friendly so that you will have the best possible chance of ranking in organic searches on Google. If you need to get your website responsive to meet the needs of Google’s search engine rules, give us a call today.