Announcing a change that would have an effect on almost every business owner, Google will start penalizing websites that are not optimized for mobile devices. This means that the non-mobile friendly websites will be downgraded on their hard-earned SEO rankings through this new algorithm update.

Here is the official statement released by Google on its webmaster’s blog –

“Starting April 21 this year, we will give more importance to a website’s mobile friendliness as a ranking factor. This update will have a major effect on the worldwide mobile searches, in all languages. Also, it will have a significant impact on the search results. As a result, users will find it easier to get quality and relevant search results that are specifically optimized to their mobile devices.”

Keeping this in mind, the websites that are misconfigured according to the search engine giant are likely to witness a heavy drop in their number of visitors. Google recommends the business owners to opt for a responsive website design that can be easily found and accessed by the mobile users.

Tips To Create A Mobile Friendly Website

• Go for simplicity: When mobile users visit a website, they are probably looking for some specific information about your business. They want to view brief chunks of text that offers them what they want. Thus, your website layout should be neat with clearly visible address, contact details, social media links and key products or services.
• Maintain your brand: Just because you are creating a mobile website, it does not mean that it has to be completely different from its desktop version. Make sure that both the websites are similar in terms of layout, color scheme, logos, navigation categories, word usage etc.
• Keep touchscreen navigation in mind: Tapping a small button on a smartphone can be harder than clicking it with a mouse on a desktop PC. Thus, while designing a mobile website, make sure that you provide links with enough white space around them so that the users do not accidentally tap on the wrong link.
• Provide links to desktop site: Sometimes, in spite of your website being mobile friendly, users like to visit the full site to have access to more information. Remember to provide a link to the desktop version at the bottom of your website.

For more information on Google’s Guidelines for Mobile Usability, visit https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6101188. Centex Technologies provides complete web development and designing services to the businesses in Atlanta. For more information, you can call at (404) 994 – 5074.