We interrupt this column’s current series for an important announcement……
Google says Responsive Web Design is a must by April 21st
Series 4, Article 36
Starting April 21, 2015, Google will be ranking websites higher in their mobile search engine if they have a responsive design, meaning a theme or template that enhances the user experience on both desktop and mobile devices by scaling and stacking the content according to the width of the screen.
This means that if you want to keep the same search ranking you’ve had in the past, you cannot ignore the need for a responsive website any longer. This change will not affect a desktop search, but with increasing mobile usage, your website cannot afford to lose customers.
Mobile usage for accessing the internet and mobile searching exceeds desktop internet usage for first time in history in January of 2014 and it has been rising ever since!
It is extremely frustrating for users to click on a website on a mobile device only to find out that it wouldn’t load properly or that you had to play the “expand and swipe around” game once you landed on the page.
Google has been dropping hints that it would rank mobile-friendly sites higher for quite some time. Back in November, Google added a “mobile-friendly” label that appeared with each search result on a mobile search results page. While this designation wasn’t a ranking factor (plenty of websites without the label were still appearing prominently in the mobile search results), it certainly did improve the user experience. Once the mobile-friendly label launched, users knew what to expect, and likely began avoiding websites without the label while searching on a mobile device. Incorporating mobile-friendliness into the mobile search algorithm only makes sense, and it’s official as of April 21st: make your site mobile friendly or see a severe dip in traffic from mobile devices.
So here’s the bottom line. If you want to continue to generate traffic from mobile search after April 21, 2015 your site needs to be mobile-friendly. Hire a web developer and get it done. It’s a worthwhile investment and you’ll be happy you did.
No clue what Responsive Design means? Have a look at this video:
http://goo.gl/fiM3yA