Is your Webite Mobile-Friendly?

Are you ready for Mobilegeddon?

With Google’s most recent announcements as of April 21st, Mobile Friendly & Responsive websites will begin to be given greater weight in organic ranking considerations.

For the past few years, the issue of having a mobile-friendly platform for a company web presence has simply been an after-thought. For most small businesses spending the time and money for a mobile framework hasn’t quite been at the top of the list with respect to priority.

However, mobile web use has been the fastest consistently growing form of web traffic and with mobile platforms becoming more and more widely used, major search engines are now officially taking notice.

Mobilegeddon or Google’s latest tweak to its complicated search engine algorithms will give more weight, favor and credence to websites that comply to modern mobile and responsive web standards.

Plainly put, the latest developments mean that online companies that have mobile-friendly frameworks will begin to see higher organic rankings, while websites without a mobile framework will start to see decreasing trends in their organic page ranks.

Is your web presence mobile friendly?

When’s the last time that your company web presence was updated to a modern framework?

Chances are that if you haven’t taken steps to specifically address the issue of mobile-friendliness with your company website, that it does not comply with modern mobile-friendly standards.

Why is this important? First, with the latest announcements from Google, any website without a mobile-friendly platform should expect to see lower organic search rankings.

This obviously is critical for any business as lower page ranks equate to lower visitor counts and lower conversion rates.

But further, without a mobile-friendly platform, mobile phone & tablet visitors to your company web presence could be browsing your site on platforms that make your offers, services, products and company information hard (or impossible!) to read and engage with online.

Choosing a solution: Mobile Friendly vs. Responsive

In order to bring your company web presence into the 21st century, there are a few different options for small businesses with respect to a mobile-friendly framework.

The first option involves creating a stand-alone version of your company’s web presence with a mobile platform. A mobile-friendly version of your site basically leaves your current website unchanged but provides a new mobile-friendly version of your site that mobile visitors are directed to when they come to your site.

With a mobile platform, business owners can skip the hassle and added cost of a complete web development revamp while creating a separate, stand-alone mobile-friendly version of a company web presence.

This option provides a more cost-effective solution in the initial setup of the mobile platform but does require more maintenance on a recurring basis as web browsers are updated to on-going modern standards.

Additionally, this option requires that new company updates are done across both web formats, thus increasing time (and potential costs) for small businesses in the long run.

The second, and more comprehensive method to resolve the mobile browsing equation deals with upgrading company websites to a responsive web platform.

A responsive web platform redevelops your entire company web presence on a platform that serves the correct version of your web design to your user based upon which platform (mobile phone, tablet, desktop) they choose to access your website.

With the responsive design solution there is a higher cost to the initial setup as this entails redeveloping your entire company website.

However, this highly flexible solution ensures that your visitors will see a consistent, reliable version of your company offerings no matter how they find and browse your site.

The Bottom Line

Your company web presence is your public presentation about the quality of your business, products and services.

Whether you know it or not, with more and more people relying on the internet to help shape their decisions, the design and functionality of your company web presence does more to “hook” prospective clientele than any other single piece of promotional marketing material.

If your mobile traffic encounters a site that is tough to read, hard to browse and that leaves them feeling impatient or frustrated, chances are that mobile traffic will simply go somewhere else on the vast world of online website, possibly to one of your local competitors.

In order to engage this traffic, and to ensure that you are capitalizing on the best chance to take advantage of your organic search rankings, modern businesses must commit to a responsive web platform.

Without proper attention to the mobile equation, small businesses run the risk of alienating a large (and growing!) population of mobile users around the globe.

Are you ready to step into a world of mobile-friendliness with your company web presence?

Give us a call today to setup your FREE, NO-RISK Responsive Web Consultation.