Here’s Why Business Owners Should Care About Google’s Mobile Usability Warning:

Previously, Google gave the most credit to websites with great content and strong backlinks from high authority sources. Quality content and backlinks led to improved rankings of those websites on Google search engine’s organic results. But the game may change a little, and it’s because the way people are viewing the web has changed.

Mobile usage has exceeded desktop & laptop use, and keeps increasing. Consumers are now frustrated with websites that are not mobile-friendly. Google’s recent mobile usability warning notification seems to signal that in Google’s future search algorithm updates, they may take mobile usability into account as an important ranking factor (or give more credit to mobile-friendly websites).

Why does Google care if sites are mobile-friendly?

Search engine ads make up a large portion of Google’s revenue, so it makes sense that they factor a website’s mobile-user-friendliness into its future-ranking algorithm. This is because the more satisfied searchers are when they navigate websites they find through Google’s search listings, the more often they will come back to Google; and that extends beyond the search page to Google’s free tools: Google Map, Google News, Gmail, etc. Ultimately, the more search traffic Google gains and retains at its search engine, the more bids Google is likely to get for its paid ads and other services from customers.

So, how would a Google change influence my website’s traffic?

If Google counts website mobile usability as an important factor in its ranking algorithm going forward, we would expect to see websites that are not mobile-friendly take a negative hit on Google’s organic search. Conversely, websites that are optimized well to be mobile-friendly and therefore more search-engine-friendly, would benefit from Google’s algorithm updates.

If your website is not mobile-responsive, you run the risk of losing ground on your organic search engine rankings when Google rolls out its new algorithm updates. This would decrease the number of web traffic to your website, which could lead to sales losses.

Let’s talk about sales losses. You probably already know that it takes time and money to generate new and qualified web traffic to your website. But few realize the critical role that having a mobile-friendly website can have in contributing to the bottom line.

Imagine if you spent a significant amount of your marketing dollars driving new and qualified traffic to your site, only to discover later that a large number of new visitors spent a few minutes on your website, but in just a few seconds, they left because your website was not user-friendly on their mobile devices. One lost sales opportunity is probably enough to encourage you to take a mobile-friendly website seriously.

Consumers expect professional, easy-to-access and digest websites. Sites they can read easily from any of their computing devices. Websites that are difficult, in any way, to read or see will be viewed unfavorably by users, and search engines. If your website seems out of date or it’s not mobile-friendly, you should find a web design firm to revamp your website soon. I hope you find this article helpful. Thanks for reading!