You only have until the end of March, 2021, to make your WordPress site mobile responsive or suffer the consequences. . .
I’m going to make this short and sweet.
This announcement is not a new thing.
Back in 2014, Google announced that, in their search results, they would prioritize mobile responsive websites.
After all, they want to provide the best results possible, and if someone is searching on their phone or tablet, they should see the results that are most relevant for them at that moment.
Over 50% of web users today access the internet from a mobile device. The numbers of users who only use a mobile device to go online is significant and growing.
So, back in November, 2014, Google announced they would factor mobile responsiveness into search rankings.
Fast forward six years, to 2020.
Google has been gradually prioritizing mobile sites in search, but in 2020 they planned to show only mobile responsive sites in search results. Because of the pandemic, they rolled back the date for implementation, to the end of March, 2021.
If your site is not mobile responsive, it won’t show up in search. Period.
Take a minute — or two — to let that sink in.
Google won’t index desktop versions of websites — only mobile versions.
It’s been a gradual rollout. All of my sites were switched to mobile first search a couple years ago.
What will that do to your site traffic? If you get any visitors from search, you know it will hurt you.
Fortunately, the solution is simple: if your site isn’t mobile friendly, find a new WordPress theme that is, and switch to that theme.
I recommend themes from StudioPress and Astra. All will provide a mobile responsive, mobile friendly site for you.
Here’s a brief tutorial on how to switch from one theme to another.
