Earlier this year, Google announced that it was planning to adapt its algorithms in favour of mobile-friendly websites. This means that if your website’s not optimised for use on a mobile device, you’ll be demoted in mobile search rankings.
Tuesday 21 April was D-day for this change as roll-out commenced across the world. So, what does it mean for self-caterers?
The details
Ultimately, ranking lower in a Google search means the volume of mobile traffic to your website is likely to decrease – and a decrease in website visitors means your booking numbers are likely to suffer. But, it’s not all bad news:
- This update only affects search rankings on mobile devices; it has no effect on searches from desktop computers or tablets.
- It applies to individual pages, not entire sites. Therefore, if only some of your pages are mobile-friendly, only those pages will see a potential search boost. Likewise, if only a few pages are mobile-unfriendly, only they will see a downgrade.
- If a page with high-quality content is not mobile-friendly, it could still rank highly if it has content that is relevant to the user’s search query.
Why the change?
It’s estimated that the number of smartphone users will surpass 2 billion by next year. That’s more than one-quarter of the world’s population. And, by 2018, that number is expected to grow to around 2.6 billion people – that’s a lot of potential guests you could be missing out on if your website doesn’t pop up on their mobile search! What’s more, statistics show that increasing numbers of people are opting to go mobile-only so, it’s a good idea to make sure your site can be reached by them. With around half of Google searches now being conducted from mobile devices, can you really afford not to be mobile-friendly?
How do I know if my site is mobile-friendly? 
Luckily, good old Google has a couple
of handy tools that enable you to test if individual pages are mobile-friendly or check the status of your entire site.
Alternatively, do a Google search on your mobile for your own website; if it’s mobile-friendly, it will say so in the search results.
All of SuperControl’s booking calendars and checkout pages have dedicated mobile versions.
If you’re in the process of updating your site to mobile-friendly status, but didn’t quite meet the deadline, don’t panic – Google will naturally re-crawl and index your pages accordingly once they’re optimised. You can speed up this process by asking Google to recrawl your URLs once the site’s ready.
And, if you haven’t yet thought about mobile optimisation, now’s the time. Google even has a guide to help you to get started. We work with lots of great developers here at SuperControl so if you need us to point you in their direction, please get in touch.
