Now more than ever, it’s critical that you have outstanding mobile presence

As you know, an overwhelming majority of home consumers are using their mobile devices before, during, and after their home search. As consumer behavior changes, Google continues to evolve its ranking algorithm to adjust for these changes.

According to SearchEngineLand.com, on April 21, 2015, Google's mobile ranking factors will not only label your site as mobile-friendly, but will also use that to determine if your site should rank higher in the search results. Google states this algorithmic change will have a "significant impact" in the mobile search results, impacting all languages worldwide.

Mobile friendly websites follow a general criterion, such as:

• Avoiding software that is not common on mobile devices, like Flash.
• Using responsive design, i.e. text that is readable without zooming, sizes content to the screen so users don't have to scroll horizontally or zoom, and places links far enough apart so that the correct one can be easily tapped.

In other words, if you don't have a mobile strategy in place you will be missing out on search traffic to your brokerage website. Your business needs to account for responsive design, in order to accommodate for consumer search preference.

PCMS has been promoting websites and marketing platforms through its partnership with Terabitz since 2009. We have seen a lot of change since then, however, with the explosion of mobile and imminent changes in how Google crawls websites, we thought it appropriate to dedicate this week's post to responsive web design.

I have sourced three very good, high-level articles on the topic of mobile consumers and the impact they are having on web design, among other things. I encourage you to give them a read, and please reach out if we can provide any support or guidance for your mobile strategy!

• Search Engine Land
• New York Times
• Huffington Post

To view the original article, visit the PCMS Consulting blog.