Boat dealers and marine businesses need to make sure websites are mobile-friendly to rank well in Google mobile searches
A major mobile milestone which will go down in the archives as “Mobilegeddon” occurred last week. Google updated its search algorithms rewarding websites that are mobile-friendly. Google being the search monster that it is, says that the change will have a “significant impact” on all mobile searches with a goal of providing online shoppers with a higher quality of results to help them find what they want, faster and better.
Sure, this change is fantastic news for the ever-growing mobile user market, with 61% of American adults already owning a smartphone, but it presents dealerships like yours with the overwhelming challenge to adapt your current strategy, mid-season, so as not to lose the search engine growth you’ve already earned.
You may not have noticed the change yet, but it is important to know how your site and ultimately your business will be affected. If you aren’t mobile-friendly already, you could be ranking lower sooner than you think without taking the appropriate actions.
Here are two key questions you need to ask yourself ASAP:
- Does we have a dedicated mobile site and/or a responsive site design?
- Can our full site recognize a mobile device and then automatically load our mobile site?
Need help with the answers?
ARI’s Google-Certified Search Engine Marketing team recommends that you check out Google’s Mobile-Friendly test, which will automatically analyze your URL and report if your page has a mobile-friendly design. This will deliver a black and white answer.
If it is a positive rating, you are good to go, but this doesn’t mean you should stop working to improve your mobile experience.
If the result is a negative one, contact your website provider immediately to work out a solution to correct this, so that your business website is in compliance with the new standards.
You can find this Google test at www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly.
Even if you think your site is mobile-friendly, it is a good idea to double-check it meets Google’s standards. The quick mobile-friendly test will also show you how Google sees your website in a mobile format in case you want to make any design or layout changes.
Ensuring your site is mobile or responsive will help create a better customer browsing experience and help you make the most of your mobile traffic.