GOOGLE CHANGES WILL PROMOTE MOBILE-FRIENDLY SITES ONLY. HOW WILL THIS AFFECT BUSINESSES IN TANZANIA.

Google is updating its search algorithms to favour websites that work well on mobile devices.

“Mobile friendliness” will affect how prominently websites appear in Google search results pages from today, 21 April.

Criteria includes text size, the amount of space between links and whether the content fits across a mobile screen.

A Google representative said mobile friendliness was “one of many” factors used by the search engine to rank results, but in a blog post the company said it would have “a significant impact” on search results.

“As people increasingly search on their mobile devices, we want to make sure they can find content that’s not only relevant and timely, but also easy to read and interact with on smaller mobile screens,” the representative said.

Google is also offering developer tools for making websites compliant with the mobile-friendly guidelines.

How this will affect businesses in Tanzania?

Well, considering that 80% of internet usage in Tanzania is from a mobile device, this has a huge impact on businesses, if your website is not ready for mobile, that will mean you will hardly appear on search results and this can result in many companies losing online customers.

Act now and make sure your website is mobile friendly. Contact us for help.