30 Apr Is your website keeping up with Google’s new mobile-friendly rules?
IMPORTANT guest post by Creekside Communications. Creekside created my mobile-friendly website last year. Please check that your not-for-profit websites, and especially your donation pages are mobile friendly!
Recently, Google announced its search algorithm would be tweaked and the web would need to be ready for sweeping updates as of April 21, 2015. The updates focused on mobile usability and were nicknamed “mobilegeddon,” heralding what was expected to be a devastating turn of events for some: Those whose websites were not ready would “be displayed and ranked appropriately for smartphone users.” In other words, websites that were not considered mobile friendly would potentially be eclipsed out of rankings, possibly never to be found again.
Cue the panic from businesses and not-for-profits worldwide.
Not every site is built to be used on all platforms, but with a majority of people now conducting searches from mobile and portable devices, (80% of people according to a recent Hubspot article), of course Google wants to ensure that it’s providing searchers with content and websites that meet their needs. It was only a matter of time before Google made some new rules in its search engine algorithm about websites needing to be mobile friendly!
Many developers and site owners were able to do what needed to be done to be ready in time for “mobilegeddon”; others were not so lucky. As online marketers at Creekside Communications, we were aware of this update and able to ensure that our site and those of our clients were built to this new mobile usability standard; we wanted to keep the web traffic coming, and we were able to do just that. We recommended (and still recommend) that site owners take Google’s Mobile Friendly Test or read about what makes a mobile site usable on Google’s Developers site. If a site passes the test, that’s great (although, from experience, we know that there is always something that can be made better for site visitors, or for your bottom line). If a site fails, there is work to be done. It may be too late to make the cut-off for the new algorithm’s launch date, but it’s not too late to learn how to make your website work for users on all platforms, mobile included, so you can ensure your not-for-profit is keeping up with the new mobile-friendly rules, and will be found by your donors in the weeks and months to come when it is inevitably re-indexed by Google.
After all, don’t you want your site to show up where and how your customers, readers or donors are looking for it?
Thank you Michaela and the team from Creekside!