Mobile Apocalypse: Another Google’s Algorithm Update! Are you prepared?

Mobile Apocalypse 2015

Mobile-friendly websites and web applications have been a major theme of the web design and development world over the last 5 years or so. We see case studies upon case studies that pertain to why mobile friendly websites and applications perform better on conversion and usability.

Obviously mobile is really important.

Google has just recently announced that they are taking it a step further. Startig April 21st, Google will update their algorithm to increase the weight of mobile friendly sites in their search results:

“[W]e will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results. Consequently, users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices.”

Source: Google Webmaster Central

 

For those companies that have been dragging their feet with update their website or web application to be mobile friendly, it’s now time to change. On April 21st, anyone that doesn’t have a mobile friendly site will see their rankings slowly drop while those who do have a mobile site will continue to rank appropriately. It is still unclear as to how significant of a change this will be.

What are the elements of a mobile-friendly site?

Optimizing a site isn’t actually that tough and a skilled web design and development firm can have a quick turnaround. If you’ve been considering optimizing your site to be a lot more mobile friendly, you might want to do so soon. After April 21st, your site will be penalized and recovering from that will be tough.

Update for mobile friendly now!

Below are some tips to help you determine if you need to update your site to be more mobile friendly:

  1. Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool to determine your mobile-friendliness. You do not have to go through your whole website; however, you should go through your highest traffic generating pages and make sure they are as mobile friendly as possible.
  2. Ensure your website is responsive. The most important factor of a mobile-friendly site is whether or not it was responsive designed and developed. If you noticed that your site doesn’t look great on a phone or everything is too small and looks like it does on a desktop computer, then you probably don’t have responsive design. Reach out to a design and development studio for help.
  3. Fix Common mobile mistakes
    • Images must be compressed
    • Javascript, CSS, and Images are non-blocking
    • Videos aren’t flashed based.
    • Pages are fast

By understanding the new Google mobile algorithm while doing Search Engine Optimization for your site, you will be able to better defend yourself against a possible penalty. If you’ve been dragging your feet, you should definitely seek out a team that has the ability to fix the issues with your current site and get you ready for April 21st.

Source: http://www.antlr-interactive.com/blog/mobile-apocalypse-googles-algorithm-update/