Not a mobile friendly website, will it hurt my rankings?

[ijb]

Unfortunately my website is not mobile friendly. As it is based on clickable links within an image there is no way to adapt it either. Now, I have heard Google is getting serious about mobile friendly design, how will this impact my ratings? My current analytics show 57% desktop, 24% mobile and 19% tablet. I really like the design of my site with the clickable images and would hate to have to change it because Google says so :-(.

My website is http://tamarindobeachinfo.com

[danatanseo]

Hi Ilka,

Unfortunately, it's probably now more important that you initially realized. This past week, Google announced that mobile usability will be a ranking factor in their algorithm beginning April 12th of this year. On the up side, there may be ways to maintain the design elements of your site that you like while maintaining mobile usability, you just might need a little help.  Remember, no matter how much in love you are with your design, if it's not serving your end users, and the devices that they are accessing your site from....the design is not serving your business goals.

Think of it more like this: Google is saying you have to change your site. Google is trying to tell you that your visitors want you to change your site...that's a whole different thing.

Here's a link to the Google announcement: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.ca/2015/02/finding-more-mobile-friendly-search.html

That's probably not exactly what you wanted to hear, but it is important to know where things are headed. If 25% of your site traffic is currently coming from mobile it might be safe to say that will double to 50% over the next year.

Cheers,

Dana

[MoosaHemani]

I totally agree with Dana, Google consider this mobile friendly website as part of their ranking algorithm. If you would asked me few months before I would have said its important to have a mobile friendly website as it will serve your users better but from the ranking standpoint, its ok to live with the current version of the website but now after the Google official announcement its must to go either responsive or a separate mobile version of the website.

Whatever you choice but if you don’t have a mobile website it will hurt your rankings no matter what.

Hope this helps!

[BlueprintMarketing]

Hi Ilka,

• I agree with Dana & Moosa the way to think of this is Google wants to serve the best site for its users and the largest growing sect as well are mobile users.
• In Webmaster tools you will see nonresponsive pages labeled as errors that is a pretty big deal.
• As Dana pointed out April 12 was when the change the algorithm occurred.
• You may want to look at your analytics and see if there is something else occurring.
• With that said I think Google has made it very clear that the end-user comes first and if that end-user cannot find the content because they're on a mobile device your site is not as valuable.
• I took a look at your site. Luckily is not very hard to modify you can easily make it responsive and here's some information that I hope will help you.

http://www.feedthebot.com/mobile/configure-viewport.html

by placing your  sites URL in the link below you will be given instructions on how to configure your exact site so it is mobile friendly as well as some other helpful tips.

http://www.feedthebot.com/mobile/

Hope this helps,

Thomas

[ijb]

Thank you all, I will go back to the drawing board. What is your thought on designing a separate version for mobile use?

[MoosaHemani]

as in the m. version for mobile users only? i would say its not a bad idea but you have to be very smart when redirecting URLs based on the device.

If you ask me what i would have done if i was facing the similar scenario, i will go for a responsive website as its a one solution for all devices and different size screens.

hope this helps!

[danatanseo]

I totally agree with Moosa....I am guessing you also have limited resources. Maintaining two separate sites, one desktop and one mobile requires a lot of major time that most small businesses and small website owners just don't have. One version of your site that's managed via one CMS that is a responsive design is the way to go if you are short on time and resources...and let's face it...even if you are an enterprise corporation, you are still short on  on resources.