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Mobile Friendly Websites

Mobile Friendly Websites – Is Your Website Compliant
With Google’s Mobile First Mandate!

Google’s mobile-friendly search algorithm significantly impacts how a website will appear in Google search results on mobile devices.

Who Is Effected? 

Generally speaking, it appears that only smartphones are effected. Tablets, laptops and desktops will continue to rely on Google’s standard algorithm, so they should receive the same search results as they do now.

Is Your Website Mobile-friendly?

If your website uses a more traditional page structure, i.e., uses fixed widths for tables, div and images, then you may need to make some adjustments so you can cater better to smartphone users.  This can be accomplish in two ways, creating a separate “mobile-only” website that mirrors your current website or using Google’s preferred approach and redesign your website to be fully “responsive”.  Click here for Google’s design considerations.

Mobile-only:  The major advantage to this approach is that you can format content specifically for mobile devices. For example, you may want to make your mobile site much more succinct by eliminating some of the large images and wording content that appears on the desktop.

The major disadvantage is that you have to maintain two websites, one for your mobile users and one for desktop, laptop and tablet users.

Responsive Websites: Probably the best long-term option. The major advantage is that responsive websites automatically adjust to the device’s screen size — presenting the best possible layout. The major disadvantage is cost.  A great deal of planning and browser/device testing is required throughout the development process.

The Best Strategy: This really depends on your needs. If your visitors are from the corporate sector and rely primarily on desktop computers, then you may not need to worry too much about the upcoming changes. If, on the other hand, they rely heavily on smartphones, then you may need to make some adjustments right away.

If you are in the latter category, you could either build a responsive website right away or you can ease into the mobile-friendly world by making only a few of your top visited pages mobile-friendly with links back to your current “full” site. This decision will probably be dictated by your budget and timeline.
  

Need more information?  Please contact us.
 
 

 

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