Google, the largest mobile platform provider in the world with the largest application store and search engine, is now running a significant algorithm change that will affect website’s ranking.
Web-to-Print sites are slightly different from other ,e-commerce sites. The statistics show that they get most of the traffic from computers, but that doesn’t mean that the changes will not affect their ranking, so here are a few things that print providers should look into in order to keep their website ranking and even improve it.
Create a “mirror” mobile site – create a simple informative or catalog site and make sure to point mobile traffic to the mirror site.
For example, if your website address is www.b2cprint.com, the mobile traffic should be pointed to m.b2cprint.com , this way your site will be indexed as a mobile friendly one.
Copy links – make sure that all search engine visible links in your website will have mirror links in the mobile site. For example, the mirror link for www.b2cprint.com/company/about-us should be m.b2cprint.com/company/about-us. This way, when your page is found through a mobile search it will open the mirror link. You will need to make sure that the link is not broken, or else it will lead the customer to a “page not found” (404) message.
If you have an app on Google play, it is best if it was associated with your site – If you have your own app indexed in Google Play, it is also best if it was associated with your mobile site. Create a link between your mobile site, to your app ‘download’ screen.
Check your mobile site using Google Webmaster Tools – After doing the above, it is always recommended to use Google tools to make sure that all links are pointing to the right target and that the search engines are “satisfied” with the adoptions you made.
The algorithm changes will start taking effect on April 21st, so it is still not too late and fairly easy to create the necessary changes mentioned above to keep and increase your website ranking, and as this change is considered “significant” one, it should get the proper attention.