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You should check if your art website is mobile friendly according to Google.  You can do so for free here.  

Our strategic adviser, Dave Geada, recently wrote about the importance of artist websites being mobile ready.

Just a day after we published Dave's article, Google announced that they indeed would be giving a ranking boost to mobile friendly websites,  especially when searches are performed on a mobile device.  The new ranking signal takes effect on April 21st.  From their blog post, "Starting April 21, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal."

Although Dave mentioned it in his article, I wanted to point out specifically that Google provides a free a tool that allows you to check if your site is "mobile friendly."

We, at FASO, knew that mobile would "take over the world" as smart phones gained prominence.  In fact, I asked, way back in 2011 if your artist website was "ready for the coming mobile growth explosion?"  [source].    Therefore, years ago, we took steps to make ALL FASO artist websites mobile friendly.  I won't name names, but I can tell you that EVEN TODAY (four years later), several of our competitors still have not implemented mobile friendly designs.  Not only are ALL FASO sites mobile, our newer designs continue to push the boundaries of design and user experience.  

So I share Google's tool with you today so you can check your own artist website.  If it renders well on mobile, then great.  If it doesn't, we can solve that issue today.  All you have to do is sign up with FASO.  Your first 60 days are on us.

However, I want to clarify something:  I am not recommending you make your site "mobile friendly" just because "Google said so."   Google isn't our boss, nor is she our master.  In fact, I often recommend artists don't need to worry much about SEO or Google rankings.   No, it's not because of Google...we are recommending that you make sure your site is mobile friendly because that's how most people visit the web now.  

While Dave shared hard statistics that indicated that mobile traffic has now overtaken desktop traffic, anecdotally, I can tell you, that I never view artist websites on my desktop computer anymore (unless I'm actually working on it in the course of being the lead developer at FASO).  With wine in hand, I view art on my smartphone, or sometimes on my iPad.  And it's jarring when I visit an artist website that renders slowly or poorly on mobile.  In those cases, I usually don't stick around for very long.  This is often how people view the web now, and that's why we've long made sure that all FASO artists are well positioned for mobile devices. [1]   The fact the Google "likes" it, is just icing on the cake.  And we're all too happy to utilize their free tool.

Since we want to  inspire the world's artists, collectors and art lovers by connecting them with each other and with great art, we need to reach them wherever they are...and that, increasingly, includes mobile devices.   Your powerful art should definitely be a part of that.  So give us a try!

Sincerely,

Clint Watson

FASO Founder, Software Craftsman, Art Fanatic

PS - I've noticed another, subtler shift in my art viewing habits.  As I said,  I often now view art on a mobile device and, increasingly, the artists I follow are presented to me in-app [2],  in our new art focused (and free) social network BoldBrush.  Now I don't have to visit a whole bunch of artist websites, I can see all the new art by my favorite artists in one place (on my mobile device!) without visiting hundreds of sites and without the annoying distractions of Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram or Twitter.   If you're not a FASO Customer, you can still post your art to BoldBrush (for free) by joining here:  http://boldbrush.com.  Or, if you need a mobile-friendly website, you can join FASO.

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Footnotes

[1]  Like the proverbial home builder who's house is falling down, we've been so focused on our customers' needs that our own website at http://faso.com, believe it or not, is not "mobile friendly".  However, we have a new site design in the works now that should be launching over the next month or two.

[2]  We are beta testing the BoldBrush Art Stream inside our FASO iOS and Android apps and will release that publicly soon.  However, stay tuned as next-up are stand-alone BoldBrush apps for those who are only interested in the social networking piece!