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As we begin 2015, it’s becoming increasingly more important that all sites are optimized for mobile performance and user-friendliness. While we’ve been seeing the growing trend across the search marketing sphere over the past several years, it’s no more prevalent than today, just how high the importance is. Google has recently taken it upon themselves to begin sending out mass notifications to webmasters whom are not getting with the times, and updating their sites to ensure seamless transfers and overall mobile-friendliness.

This new directive that Google took, in the warning of mobile searches, begs the question of whether they are getting ready to launch a new mobile ranking algorithm. There has been ongoing discussion for the past few months, about Google experimenting with a mobile-friendly enhancing label of some sort; something that specifically boosts the search rankings for sites whom are fully mobile-friendly. They have also been launching new mobile-related tools within Webmaster Tools to further assist users, like the mobile friendly tool and the mobile usability reporting tool.

If you received warning like this recently, head into your Webmaster Tools account and go to the Mobile Usability section, under Search Traffic. You’ll see a list of all of the errors, and how many of those errors occur. Note some of the major usability concerns Google points out:

• Viewport Not Configured: Not all responsive sites are automatically configured for the viewport of the different sizes of devices. (Users often want to manually zoom, and the viewport allows them to do this).
• Small Font Size: This one is pretty upfront. Your mobile screen is already significantly smaller than let’s say, a desktop; increase your font size to allow for better usability.
• Touch Elements Too Close: Links are too close together, making it difficult for fingers of all sizes to interact with the screen properly.
• Content Not Sized to Viewpoint: A little bit of code that tells the web server how to display the site, based on who the user is coming in.

Check out your Google Webmaster Tools for these issues, and make the necessary changes fast. We recommend trying to get ahead of any new algorithm changes, and optimize your site for the future [and present] of mobile searches. Get ready for something big to come; we know Google is!