Mobile-friendly websites will soon become more important for businesses than ever. Google recently announced a ranking signal change that will favor mobile-friendly websites in search results. Is your website responsive?

The change, influenced by increasing mobile Internet usage, will allow people to more easily discover relevant, device optimized, and high quality search results. Last year, Shopify reported that mobile accounted for 50.3 percent of ecommerce traffic (40.3% mobile, 10% from tablets), beating out computers.

The search engine giant stated the change will occur on April 21, and “will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact” on search results.

What to do about the new changes:

• Read Google’s guide to mobile-friendly sites
• Test your website’s responsiveness on Google’s mobile-friendly test
• Log into Google Webmaster Tools and get a list of mobile usability issues across your website using the Mobile Usability Report.

Additional resources

To learn more about search engine optimization, Google Webmaster Tools, or mobile-friendly websites, check out our blog posts and guides:

• A Beginner’s Guide to Google Webmaster Tools
• The Top 10 Best Resources to Learn about SEO
• Responsive Design & How it Impacts You [Video]
• How to Optimize Your Website for the Mobile Era

While this news doesn’t affect your email marketing campaigns, new VerticalResponse email templates are fully responsive and mobile-friendly.

What do you think of Google’s latest mobile-friendly website favoring search ranking change?

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