why you need a mobile-friendly website

The announcement by Google that they are now using “mobile-friendly” as a search criteria has caused a lot of buzz in the web community. I’ve read extensively about exactly how this will affect current sites and there’s no getting around the fact that we need to re-design sites from the ground up. Google strongly recommends this. In other words, as one blogger put it “There is no bolt-on solution.”

There are several advantages to creating a new site and I urge you to understand this as a website owner. As you know, the Internet is constantly changing and evolving. Websites that are re-designed have new programming and code throughout the underlying structure. One of the main advantages of newer code is security. Over the past couple of years there’s been a huge increase in the number of websites that are being hacked. This usually takes the site completely off-line. CCS spent about three months last fall securing each of our sites and installing bullet-proof software to prevent malicious attacks. The advantage of doing this as a preventative measure has paid off; many website owners not hosted on CCS servers have called us to help them retrieve their sites and remove the malicious code.

The other advantage to a new site is search rank. As each new site is launched, I spend the next few days/weeks creating site maps, updating Webmaster Tools, checking errors and doing other tasks that alert Google to the newly-created site. This kicks off the process of Google re-indexing every page of the site — resulting in better search results. The new site is seen as a signal that the site owners are actively promoting their business.

What about cost?

In this day and age most businesses have been able to reduce the cost of printing brochures, ads and phone book listings resulting in their being able to transfer that expense over to their websites. The advantage of course is that the website is out there 24/7 and has a bigger reach to the correct audience.

Am I anti-print? A resounding NO! Print is not dead; in fact I encourage all my customers to embrace print, radio, signage, vehicle decals, placemats, sidewalk art and any other marketing method that creates a return on their investment. The days of tossing a few dollars at everyone who happens to come in the door are long past. You’d be broke in no time with nothing but zeros in the Return on Investment column. Contact me. I’ll help you make a plan that will incorporate the methods that DO work and filter out the ones that DON’T work for you. Using your budget as a starting point.

My goal is to help make your business successful. As a business owner, you need to make Very Good Decisions. At no time in the history of your company — whether you’ve been in business five days or 100 years — has there been a more diverse and baffling set of advertising choices. It would be impossible for any business owner to know and understand each one of them. That’s why we do the work for you.