Even before ‘mobilegeddon’, web masters and developers have already been updating their themes to make it responsive and mobile-friendly to adapt to the recent influx of mobile devices like mobile phones and tablets.
Why Responsive?
Nowadays, desktop and laptops are not the only means to access the internet. Smartphones and tablets are much preferred for browsing as they are more convenient to use and bring. Thus, it is important to make a website responsive online for it to function properly if viewed on any of them.
With a responsive website, images automatically resize and do not appear distorted and different elements respond correctly on various sizes of mobile devices. Your readers will surely appreciate a responsive website design as it makes browsing easier and faster. Aside from the quality of the content, easy navigation is one factor readers consider when they visit a website.
How to Make your Website Responsive
There are two options in making your website responsive:
- Get a responsive a WordPress Theme
- Install
What method you choose is going to depend on the time you’re willing to invest and the amount of money you want to spend.
Here are three options you can consider:
- Get a Responsive WordPress Theme – Probably the best solution for most web owners. Most WordPress themes nowadays are already responsive so if you haven’t changed your theme in the past year or so, use this tool from Google to check if your website is responsive: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/
- Install WP Touch – In the event that a theme change is out of the question, upload this plugin. The downside? It doesn’t work on all WordPress themes.
- Use Media Queries (CSS3) – if you are brave enough to edit your stylesheet, then use media queries. All you need to do is add a media query to tell your browser how to display your website in different screens and resolutions.
The Mobilegeddon and how it will affect your Website’s Rankings
Earlier this year, Google announced “Starting April 21, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results.”
Web gurus have expressed that the change is gradual but can already be felt in the search results.
How to prepare for the Mobilegeddon
Mobile-friendly sites no longer have to worry about the much talked about ‘mobilegeddon’. However, if you resorted to the steps mentioned above, you can still do something about your website:
- Ensure that the mobile version of your website is functional and active. Content is no longer king if your website is not readable.
- Ensure that Google’s mobile bots find and crawl your site. Everything is useless if Google cannot locate your website.
- Check the navigability of your entire website using various mobile devices. Your homepage maybe mobile-friendly but chances are, the rest of the pages aren’t.
If you indeed want your website to rank in the search results, then make your website responsive online to properly adapt to the ever changing requirements of search engines.
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