Google has just announced that starting April 21st, websites that are not mobile friendly will be penalized in mobile search results. Seems like a no-brainer, if you are using your phone to do a search, it is easier to view information and take action if the site you go to is mobile friendly.
With more than 25% of searches now being done on mobile devices (BIA/Kelsey (April 2014)), companies that have not yet created a mobile or responsive site can expect a traffic hit in the next few months.
In addition to better search placement, mobile, responsive and adaptive sites also lead to higher call percentage and from several implementations we’ve seen, a huge improvement in abandonment rates. It seems users on mobile devices that get to a site that is not mobile friendly would just rather go somewhere else.
In the blog post, Google also provides some guidelines and testing tools to check your site compliance.
Tip: not highly publicized, but Chrome browser includes a great mobile testing tool. In the Menu under “More Tools” there is an option for Developer Tools. These allow for selection of device for output and changing the HTTP header data to test using different devices.
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