Google Going Mobile April 21st 2015

Google Going Mobile April 21st – by Tony Burke

Ahead of their plans, it was fitting that Google took to Twitter recently to its own webmaster community with a view to publish some advice to webmasters about mobile search results. With Google going mobile April 21st 2015, there is now less than 8 days to apply these solutions as quick as possible, so you don’t get drop offs in your organic searching. From April 21st, Google search results will prefer sites that follow its mobile friendly rules.

Click here to view the Google page of common mistakes!

See the bottom of the post for direct links and Google’s list of most important fixes. But, I think first things first – try your site on your mobile phone and assess the weak points as an end user. The science bit may be above you, but common sense like broken links or file not found or switching from mobile to desktop pages will only irritate your customers. Now, even more so this will irritate Google. Make a list of simple faults to correct and then deal with the bigger issues with your website builders.

At this stage, I would also like to point out that if you are working on a CMS platform using a responsive theme, this may not be enough. Basic web designers have a set and forget mentality and assume that using a professional theme counteracts this issue. It does not. Call to actions and a mobile menu are the basics that a responsive theme will do. Usually, the idea of a responsive design strategy is lost in the project.

Take the Mobile-Friendly Test

Next, make sure your site is listed with Google webmasters – as you will certainly get a warning if your sites are not mobile friendly and possibly an email to state the same. You can then check your page load speed from within your webmasters account and this will also in turn give you a list of definite problem areas in terms of speed.

Next – check to see if you have any unplayable videos or images that don’t load properly. If you can do all of this, the list below becomes less daunting for sure. Good Luck!

The seven most common problem areas for webmasters are: