Become Mobile Friendly Or Die!D-Day April 21D-Day April 21stst 2015 2015

Introduction

From April 21 2015 Google is penalizing non-mobile friendly web pages. Although there is already a ranking factor related to mobile friendliness of sites it's impact seems to have been relatively small.

Mobile searches have now overtaken desktop searches and continue to rise dramatically so this means you need to have your web pages showing in the mobile search results or you are seriously losing customers and money.

Become Mobile Friendly Or Die!D-Day April 21D-Day April 21stst 2015 2015

Introduction

From April 21 2015 Google is penalizing non-mobile friendly web pages. Although there is already a ranking factor related to mobile friendliness of sites it's impact seems to have been relatively small.

Mobile searches have now overtaken desktop searches and continue to rise dramatically so this means you need to have your web pages showing in the mobile search results or you are seriously losing customers and money.

Become Mobile Friendly Or Die!D-Day April 21D-Day April 21stst 2015 2015

How do Google look at and penalize non-mobile friendly pages

Firstly and importantly it is important to understand that these penalties are made at a page level not a site level. So individual pages can be penalized. This mean you need to look at every page of your site to check it is mobile friendly.

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly

Become Mobile Friendly Or Die!D-Day April 21D-Day April 21stst 2015 2015

Google Warning Messages

If you do have your sites registered with Google Webmaster Tools then you will almost certainly start to get emails from Google if there are any issues found. Like this...

For those of you who want to know more about web page fundamentals you should checkout

https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/

Become Mobile Friendly Or Die!D-Day April 21D-Day April 21stst 2015 2015

Google Warning Messages

If you do have your sites registered with Google Webmaster Tools then you will almost certainly start to get emails from Google if there are any issues found. Like this...

For those of you who want to know more about web page fundamentals you should checkout

https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/

Become Mobile Friendly Or Die!D-Day April 21D-Day April 21stst 2015 2015

What Is A Mobile Friendly Site?

In short it is a web site (or web pages) that display well on mobile devices like tablets and mobile phones. Some tablets can happily display web pages just as well as if they were displayed on desktops. This is basically related directly to screen size in most cases as tablets are generally larger than phones.

Make your site mobile friendly by using a responsive theme or or having a mobile specific website only for mobile visitors.

Become Mobile Friendly Or Die!D-Day April 21D-Day April 21stst 2015 2015

What Is A Mobile Friendly Site?

In short it is a web site (or web pages) that display well on mobile devices like tablets and mobile phones. Some tablets can happily display web pages just as well as if they were displayed on desktops. This is basically related directly to screen size in most cases as tablets are generally larger than phones.

Make your site mobile friendly by using a responsive theme or or having a mobile specific website only for mobile visitors.

Become Mobile Friendly Or Die!D-Day April 21D-Day April 21stst 2015 2015

Preparing Your WordPress Site

Before doing anything to your WordPress site you should make sure you have a full and current backup. DO NOT make any changes without being 100% confident that your site is backed up and you can restore it if anything goes wrong.

Make your site mobile friendly by using a responsive theme or or having a mobile specific website only for mobile visitors.

Check your page with the Google Mobile Friendly Tool

Become Mobile Friendly Or Die!D-Day April 21D-Day April 21stst 2015 2015

Making Your Word press Site Mobile Friendly

1. robot.txt

Remember I said that Google use Googlebot to check your web pages? So if you have accidentally or intentionally blocked Googlebot then Google will not be able to properly check your web pages. By default, when this happens Google assume and report that you have issues.

You MUST use the Google Mobile Friendly Test tool to be sure you are looking at the correct results.

Become Mobile Friendly Or Die!D-Day April 21D-Day April 21stst 2015 2015

Making Your Word press Site Mobile Friendly

2. Installing and configuring A Mobile Friendly Plugin

There are a number of WordPress plugins that will make your site mobile friendly. What they do is detect when a mobile device is viewing the web page and switch in a responsive theme specifically for the mobile device.

https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/wptouch.3.7.3.ziphttps://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/rocket-wp-mobile.0.4.zip

Become Mobile Friendly Or Die!D-Day April 21D-Day April 21stst 2015 2015

Making Your Word press Site Mobile Friendly

3. Installing a Responsive Theme

The final option is to install a responsive theme in place of the current theme. As I mentioned previously this may be an issue especially if your current them is customized. If the new theme does not have the same customization then how your site displays may be affected.

Also note that with a new theme that may have different customizable options you may need to make some changes to the theme settings.

Become Mobile Friendly Or Die!D-Day April 21D-Day April 21stst 2015 2015

Finalizing Your New Mobile Friendly Pages

Finally you should thoroughly check all pages on your site to ensure all is well. Check opt-in forms and payment buttons etc. for full functionality.

Check all posts, pages and images etc. for correct formatting.

Although Google will tell you if the technical things are all OK it cannot as yet understand your content well enough to know how well the presentation works for mobile site visitors.