Google's Mobile Friendly Initiative
Well, there's big news at Google that may affect your website. Google announced recently that it would start including a site's mobile friendly status into account for mobile searches (not desktop, just mobile). This has created a lot of activity because most sites still aren't mobile friendly and website owners are panicking.
I panicked a bit as well when I started looking at what Google has determined is mobile friendly. They have changed the rules on me in a bad way - a bad way for your customers. They did this, I believe, to make testing your site for mobile access easier for them. They have shown no data about user patterns or different patterns by mobile device. Instead they have lumped it all into a Google Knows Best scenario that only benefits them.
After some research and thought, I wrote a really long blog post about all these changes and how it affects Zen Cart users which you can read here:
http://www.teamwiztech.com/blog/mobile-friendly-zen-cart
In a nutshell, you must understand two things:
- If you do not have a mobile friendly website, your google rankings will drop in mobile searches. It will not affect your desktop search results. Of course, if you aren't working on rankings, most likely this will not impact you. Different websites get their customers in different ways!
- Your options are clear. If you want to be considered mobile friendly, you must get a responsive template (and I don't like any I've worked with and not all can pass the Google test). Or you can get my mobile template available for purchase at ZenCartDelia.com. Or you can just ignore it all. I am ignoring it for ZenCartDelia.com - I sell digital downloads and my google analytics tell me my mobile visitors are few.
If you want to discuss this further with me, don't hesitate to email me. Please don't call! I'm trying to be as responsive as possible but I have increased work, emails and phone calls due to the upgrades and the mobile changes. It's really hard to get work done when the phone keeps ringing but do contact me.
Delia's Mobile Template
The news from Google affects my mobile template in one way I'm sure of. Google only deems it mobile friendly if auto redirects are set up which I have always been reluctant to do. Now you have to. Ack. So if you have my mobile template, you need to switch it to auto redirect. The newest version does this correctly but if you are using an older version, I can't promise good results because it was done differently.
But, and hear me clearly , if you are using an older version of the mobile, that means you haven't upgraded yet. I am reluctant to work on old versions at this point. I would prefer you upgrade first and then get the new mobile version.
I know you are tired of hearing me beat this drum but upgrading is fast becoming a necessity. Upgrading can be simple or hard but if you are on any version prior to 1.5.3, you have to upgrade. If you don't and your hosting upgrades their PHP level, your site may go down and/or not work properly. It can be subtle on versions 1.5x but it is real!
For customers whose carts I have setup or upgraded in the past, I offer great rates on this upgrade. If I have worked on your cart before, you still will get reduced pricing. Just contact me for more info.
If you haven't used my services before, upgrading is available at full price but will probably require a site evaluation prior to the upgrade. You can read more about site evaluations here: http://www.teamwiztech.com/zen-cart-site-evaluations.php
Delia
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