St. Louis Biz Talk Helps Businesses to Be Mobile-Friendly Many for Free

Google shook up the entire internet industry on April 21st, 2015 when they rolled out their new mobile-friendly algorithm. This was an unprecedented move when they pre-announced their mobile algorithm saying they did this to give businesses ample time to make their websites mobile-friendly. Notable writers in the industry referenced this event as ‘Mobilegeddon’; a day that will live in internet infamy. So, what does this mean for your business if it is not mobile-friendly?

Google will now favor sites that are mobile-friendly. Websites that have not made their site mobile-friendly could find themselves ranked significantly lower than before, which in turn could mean a huge loss of business.

Google recently released a statement explaining its goal to provide consumers with relevant content that is both easy to find and read on smaller mobile screens.

We should mention that this real-time update will impact only mobile searchers which equates to a ranking boost for mobile-friendly pages in Google’s mobile search results.

Not being mobile-friendly may cause a website ranked number 1 or 2 in a Google search query to possibly fall to the bottom of the page or entirely disappear into oblivion which could cause a loss of thousands of dollars for a local small business.

On the other hand, desktop searches will not be affected. That being said, nearly 59 percent of all local searches are done on smartphones and that nearly 50 percent of mobile users are most likely to visit a store after conducting a local search. If you are not mobile-friendly you will lose potential new customers.

St. Louis Biz Talk currently tested 100 randomly picked businesses in various industries in St. Louis and found that approximately 49 percent of websites were not mobile-friendly which is higher than the overall nationwide average of 44 percent.

But what if you are one of the millions of businesses who failed Google’s mobile-friendly test? Will this cost you a fortune to fix?

Absolutely not. Search engine optimization (SEO) experts note that most businesses nowadays are not found by their website but instead through online business local search directories.

For example, if the average consumer goes to Google and looks up restaurants or roofers, in most cases local listings show up first and local organic searches afterwards.

By getting listed in your local directories and updating your business information in Yelp and Google’s My Business sections, this social media maneuver can buy you additional time as you prepare the needed long-term changes in making your website mobile-friendly. This is extremely important.

But there is also a free way to make your mobile website friendly. Any business that hosts their website on a WordPress.org platform can download a free mobile website plugin and once uploaded will make their website mobile-friendly. A solution that is free and easy.

Worried about your website? Google has a Mobile-Friendly test page in its developer section. Just type in the URL and see if it passes. The URL: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/.

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