Is your Virginia Beach company website mobile responsive? If it is not, it means your digital marketing strategy is faulty and it is time to revise it or improve it, especially given the change Google has made to it’s algorithm with mobile-first indexing. There are two important reasons for that:
- Around 78.2% of Americans, including your potential Virginia Beach clients, use mobile devices to surf the web. If they land on your website and it is not mobile responsive, they will have a hard time reading your content and finding the information they need. This means they will most likely return or move on to the websites of your Virginia Beach competitors.
- Google made algorithm changes to enhance the experience of mobile internet users, so your failure to invest in a mobile-responsive website and mobile marketing will negatively affect your Google rank. The most important change Google made refers to “mobile-first indexing”.
What Is Mobile-First Indexing and How Does It Affect Your Virginia Beach Business?
As you may already know, Google crawls and indexes websites in order to determine their ranking. Mobile-first indexing means that Google will begin their indexing of your website from its mobile version. If you have one, they will crawl it, crawl the desktop version as well, and determine your website’s rank, giving you the upper hand over Virginia Beach competitors who have not invested in mobile marketing.
If your digital marketing strategy neglected your website’s mobile version, when Google does not find it, it will crawl and index the desktop version only. When establishing your website’s rank, it will give your Virginia Beach competitors who have mobile responsive websites the upper hand. The impact on your ranking could still be negative if your website has a mobile version but it does not live up to standards – think slow loading, inadequately sized photos, or unreadable content.
Of course, this is the simplified presentation, and Google takes into account many other aspects when ranking websites, not only their mobile-responsive design or version. The bottom line is that, no matter how much money you invest in digital marketing, if you do not cover mobile marketing as well, you stand to lose exposure and ranking. On the other hand, if you take advantage of this change in Google’s ranking algorithm, you have a chance to:
- Improve your website’s Google rank
- Stand out from your competitors
- Engage more potential clients
- Draw more business
How Can You Make Mobile-First Indexing Work for Your Virginia Beach Business?
As always, before making any changes, you need to know where you stand. Once you know where you are at, you can take measures to get to the right destination and reach your goals. To find out where you stand, you can access your company website from various mobile devices and assess its responsiveness.
If the images and the content adjust automatically to the screen size of the device you are using, the website loads fast, and the content is readable, chances are your digital marketing manager or service provider is doing a good job. If you notice any issues, you should have a serious talk with your manager or service provider or, at least, consider getting a third-party evaluation.
An important aspect to consider when determining the steps to take is whether your website is responsive, or it has a separate mobile version. Responsiveness means the same website adjusts automatically to the requirements of the device used to access it. Different versions mean your business practically has two websites: one for desktop users and one for mobile users (e.g.: www.yourbusiness.com vs. www.m.yourbusiness.com).
If your website is mobile responsive, everything you post on it will automatically adjust to screen size and ensure a great experience for your website visitor. If it has separate versions for desktop and mobile users, you need to make sure the two versions are on the same level, and your digital marketing manager or service provider has not neglected one version in favor of the other. They should be similar when it comes to:
- Content (text, images, and video)
- Structured data
- Metadata
- Hreflang
- Social metadata
- XML and media sitemaps
- Search console check
- App indexation
- Switchboard tags, and more
Perhaps these terms do not make much sense to you, and it is perfectly normal. If you were a digital marketing expert yourself, you would not need a marketing manager or third party services. What matters is that, if you do not act right now and you do not align your company website to Google’s algorithm changes, including first-mobile indexing, you risk losing clients and visibility.
At Focus DMG, we can and we want to help. If you give us a chance, we will evaluate your website’s alignment with the first-mobile indexing principles, identify any issues, and advise you on the steps to follow in order to make sure you reach out to mobile users and improve your Google rank.
If you allow us, we can even take those steps for you. Call (757) 600-0446 or fill in the contact form now, and let us work together to make sure your Virginia Beach company website benefits from the most effective digital marketing and mobile marketing strategies and meets all expectations: Google and mobile users’.
