Are You Ready for Google’s Mobile Friendly Deadline?
While everyone knows about the April 15th deadline for filing their taxes, there is another important deadline this April that affects merchants who sell online.
Starting on April 21st 2015, Google will be expanding their use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. In plain English, what this means is that your online store will face a ranking penalty from Google if it is not mobile optimized. Google specifically mentions “This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results”.
Given the amount of searches that are now conducted on mobile devices, and based on Google’s own comments, merchants need to take mobile optimization very seriously. This simple list will prepare merchants accordingly:
1.) Make sure your online store is fully mobile optimized. If this is not the case, you need to make the necessary adjustments or switch to a new eCommerce platform provider now.
2.) If you are a merchant using Nexternal’s eCommerce platform, check to make sure your Mobile Layout is In Use in the Layout section under Mobile Layout. If for some reason it is not already on, please reach out to your account executive if you have questions about enabling the feature.
3.) To ensure that Google also views your pages are mobile optimized, test them here.
Google has made it clear that they expect the Internet to be secure (a topic I wrote about previously) and mobile-friendly. Merchants who understand these expectations are the ones that will thrive. Are you and your store ready?
Craig is the VP of Sales at Nexternal and is known in the industry as an expert in eCommerce, systems integrations, and online marketing. Craig has been with Nexternal since 2000 and his passion and experience are apparent to all who work with him.
