Helping you to make the right decision

This article was originally written on 26 April 2015 and updated on 1 June 2019.

Will your website be affected by the recent Google Mobile update? Are you feeling the pressure to do something? Have you been told you will have to change your website to comply? If so, then, most likely, you may be a little confused and wondering where is the best place to go for some advice. This article hopes to remove the confusion and help you make the right decision about what do do next.

From the horses mouth – what Google says!

On the 26 February 2015, Google announced an important change to help users discover more mobile-friendly content and confirmed it would be rolled out on the 21 April 2015. The aim was to expand their use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal.  They went on to say, the change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in their search results. Consequently, they believe, users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices.

They also included a free tool to test if Google will view your Website as mobile friendly and named it the Mobile Friendly Test. They went on to say;

• Affects only search rankings on mobile devices
• Affects search results in all languages globally
• Applies to individual pages, not entire websites

Then on 28 May 2019, Google announced, Mobile-First Indexing by default for new domains.

What a great opportunity for the Web Design industry!

Back in 2015, we went on to say, for nearly two years, the Web Design industry had been aggressively telling website owners, of the need to move to a mobile friendly website. Unfortunately, what they were unable to do, or more likely, refused to clarify, was; what, actually, is a mobile friendly website. Likewise, with the subsequent Google update on 21 April 2015, Accountant Web Designers began deliberately “throwing this into the pot”, in the hope it will finally push website owners over the edge and make them invest in a, potentially, and, unnecessary, new website.

So, in case you are having sleepless nights (surely not) over the constant bombardment of the need to invest in a new website, the following should give you some guidance and is much simpler than you may think.

So, do you need to worry?

Back in 2015, we said probably not! A client of ours at the time contacted us about the Google issue, so we decided to do a quick check on their website statistics. Within a matter of minutes, we were able to confirm, only 0.1% of traffic to their website was from Mobile Phone devices. Of that 0.1%, an even smaller percentage was due to the visitor finding the website via a Google search on a Mobile Phone. Therefore, since the Google Mobile Phone update only applies to Mobile Phones, you don’t have to be a “Rocket Scientist” to realise, this client had nothing to worry about.

Therefore, if you are happy with your website and have very little Mobile Phone activity, then we would still say, don’t worry about it. If the Desktop version of your website ranks high for your key search phrases, then it will continue to do so into the near future. By the way, this also applies to Pads and Tablets.

When you may need to or want to take action

1. If a large proportion of your website traffic is from Mobile Phones.
2. If your website serves mostly dynamic content, such as, Ecommerce Websites.
3. Your Website is old and tired looking and you can afford a new website.

If a large proportion of your website traffic is from Mobile Phones and you can afford to do something about it, then perhaps it is the best time to change over to an auto responsive website and give your visitors a layout they prefer to interact with. If your website is based on one of the Internet’s leading CMS systems, such as, WordPress, then  you should be able to keep all your existing data and, simply, change to a new auto responsive Theme or Template.

If your website is old and tired looking and you would like a new Accountant Website, based on one of the popular CMS systems, then all our Hosting Plans have these pre-installed and may be worth a look. If you would like us to build you a new Website, then why not check out our ProCMS WordPress Developer service.

Likewise, if your content is always changing, then having to update two versions of your website will quickly become very labourious and makes an auto responsive website almost mandatory.

In summary

Don’t feel intimidated to invest in a new website just because nearly all Accountant Web Design suppliers would infer you would be mad not to. The issue is simple; if you have little Mobile Phone traffic and do not have an issue with it looking a little tired and dated, then the Google Mobile Phone update is going to have negligible impact on your Website.

However, since we wrote this article back in 2015, most Websites on the Internet have now moved over to Mobile friendly/Auto Responsive Websites. It would not make any sense not to. All the leading CMS systems, such as WordPress, now generate mobile friendly pages. All Accountant Web Designers are now on board with the new technology. Website Portals, such as, Wix, Yola, Weebly, all generate mobile friendly websites.