Mobilegeddon is today! Is your shop ready?

Does your shop have a "mobile friendly" website? If not, beginning this week there is a good chance your shop's position in Google rankings will be negatively affected!

Google is launching a change that gives a ranking boost to mobile-friendly pages in Google’s mobile search results. While this change is just one of many signals Google takes into account when ranking a shop's website, it is going to be an important one. Google says it will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide, and have "a significant impact" in search results.

Why? It just makes sense since many people spend the majority of their time on their mobile devices. Mobile is not going away. If your shop's website isn't mobile-friendly, you're doing yourself and your potential customers a disservice, regardless of how Google is ranking your content.

Google states, "When it comes to search on mobile devices, users should get the most relevant and timely results, no matter if the information lives on mobile-friendly web pages or apps. As more people use mobile devices to access the Internet, our algorithms have to adapt to these usage patterns."

 So what should you do if your site isn’t optimized for mobile devices? Well, we suggest you start by utilizing Google's Mobile-Friendly test tool to test your website:

Enter your website URL, and hit "analyze". Hopefully you'll get something that looks like this, telling you your site is mobile-friendly:

If your URL is not deemed mobile-friendly, Google will tell you specific reasons, as well as info about how Googlebot sees it. They’ll also give resources to help you fix issues. Reasons a page isn't mobile friendly might include things like: "content wider than screen," "uses incompatible plugins," "links too close together," and "text too small to read."

Based on our research and experience, if your shop implemented a website over 4 years ago and you have not made any changes or created a separate mobile site you probably need some help ASAP. We have also found that many sites built by AutoWatch/SeeProgress some time ago are not "mobile friendly."

Google recommends the following platforms for creating new sites, and chances are you're already using one of them: WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Blogger, vBulletin, Tumblr, DataLife Engine, Magento, Prestashop, Bitrix, and Google Sites.

When it comes to creating a mobile site for an auto body or repair shop you need to focus on the most important and common tasks your customers are going to perform on their mobile device. From our perspective a mobile site for auto body and repair shops should include but not be limited to the following:

• Tap to Call Button
• Find Us with Map and Directions. If you own multiple shops you should provide a list of all your shops
• Schedule an Appointment
• Check Your Repair Status (if you offer this)
• Online Reviews (Check and the Ability to Give Reviews) 

Below are examples of mobile sites in the collision repair industry.

      
If you need a mobile site and have a good relationship with your existing website developer they should be able to help you design and implement a "mobile friendly" website fairly quickly.

Having a mobile-friendly site for your shop is good for more than just Google rankings. It's good for your site visitors, and could mean the difference in getting a new customer or not!

Next Steps
Mitchell’s Digital Marketing Platform has combined several powerful tools to effectively market your business online and drive more profit through increased sales. Contact us or call us at 866-639-7075 to learn more about how to attract new customers and manage your customer experience with the Mitchell Complete Digital Marketing Solution.