SEO in 2015: How to Prepare for Google’s Upcoming "Mobilegeddon" Update

Mobilegeddon — another iteration of Google’s algorithm made to make websites more mobile-friendly — will hit on April 21st 2015. On this day, a Google mobile algorithm update will increase the ranking of sites that are mobile-friendly. All websites which fail to perform well on mobile devices will be more difficult to find on those devices in the search results. However, they have stated that it will take a week to be fully rolled out.

How to Prepare for the Update

To prepare, you can use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to check your site’s mobile compatibility. It also provides suggestions on how the site could be further optimised. Google Webmaster Tools also contains a convenient Mobile Usability Report where you get a detailed report of the mobile user experience. If you find any errors or discrepancies in your report, you have roughly two weeks from now to get them fixed.

If your site is already mobile-friendly, you won’t have much to worry about with this upcoming algorithm. However, if you’ve not yet optimised your site, now is the right time to get it done. Some recommended actions to prepare for upcoming algorithm update are;

• Be mobile ready – contact a web developer such as http://www.fiverivers.net to make the site responsive. Also make sure Google’s mobile bots can crawl your website correctly.
• Understand your mobile traffic - use Google Analytics to evaluate mobile traffic volume and quality. It will help to understand the proportion of traffic comes from mobile.
• Review behaviour metrics - analyse how your mobile traffic performs. Understand which pages need improvement using segments in Google Analytics e.g Bounce rate and time spent on the website.

To learn more about how to get your site optimised for upcoming Google's update, read this more in depth report - http://fiveriversdigital.co.uk/2015/04/is-your-website-mobile-ready/ - or contact us at – http://www.fiverivers.net/contact-us

How to Create a User-Friendly Website that will generate Loyal Customers

If you’re looking to hire a web design company to create a website for a new business venture, or are refreshing an existing website, your input into the design is key. A well-planned and well-designed website will ensure its relevancy and longevity in a market where web technologies are constantly pushing new boundaries. A poorly constructed site that doesn’t have the end user at the forefront of its planning will not only drive visitors away – you will have wasted your money from the outset. However, it’s not just about visual styling - site content is of equal importance. If your skills lie away from content writing, it’s worth paying a professional to do it for you. Bad grammar or a mixed message can make your site appear untrustworthy and confusing.

To help your potential customers navigate through your site more easily, here are some guidelines to follow:

• Style - The style of a website plays an important role in conveying the company message. For example, using clear flash animation will help attract users and make it visually engaging. Flash is most often used on the homepage, however, it should be used minimally as to ensure the key message is not lost.
• SEO Friendly - Search Engine Optimisation describes a strategy that helps websites to be found more easily on all search engines. The inclusion of relevant keywords into the text and images of a website, will ensure your site achieves greater visibility when people search for your services.
• Navigation – This is a crucial element of web design. As a rule of thumb, any visitor should be able to find all pages on a website within three clicks from their landing page. Navigation describes how the website content is divided into different sections, and the flow from page to page – this includes the menu and its associated drop-down menus, buttons and hyperlinks. Think about what you would expect when visiting a site, and what page would make sense to link to, based on the information on that page.
• Compatibility – Regardless as to how good the graphics or content of a website, if the web pages are not compatible with the main web browsers, the website will not achieve its true potential. Ensure that it will be fully compatible with Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome and Safari.

As a leading London website development agency, we design and build websites to reflect your brand and core values. We understand the importance of a friendly UX (user experience), and this is reflected in our work. For more information, visit http://www.fiverivers.net , or to see examples of our work, visit http://www.fiveriversdigital.co.uk/2014/10/web-ui-designs