Published on the 09/06/2015 | Written by Richard Conway
You may not have noticed it, but 21 April 2015 was ‘mobilegeddon’…
That’s because Google released its hotly anticipated algorithm update, which looked at the mobile-friendliness of a website (and threatened to not rank sites non-mobile optimised sites for searches from mobile devices). The writing was on the wall for many months that a mobile-targeted update was coming, with the first indication Google’s introduction of a ‘mobile friendly’ label in search results on mobile devices: The next, and clearest, sign was Google starting to send emails to webmasters via webmaster tools. The emailed messages talked about mobile friendliness and included instructions on how to fix any issues. Well over a month since the release of the update, and lo and behold… nothing earth-shattering has happened. Be that as it may, it is well worth bearing in mind that if a website is not mobile friendly, it won’t provide a great experience for mobile users, so the impact on mobile rankings will likely be minimal. Below are some important things to know about the update: 1. Mobile only – The impact is only seen in mobile search results, not on desktop or tablet searches. It’s worth remembering that the world is going mobile: In the United States, mobile users have overtaken desktop ones. That means i is simply good business practice to have a mobile version of your website. To assess if your website is compliant, check out Google’s free mobile-friendly test tool. *The views expressed by the author are not necessarily those of the publisher or editor of iStart.
2. Rolling update – This update is not a one-off like many others, so if you create a mobile friendly website in the aftermath of mobilegeddon, you can regain rankings quite quickly.
3. Mobile users – Have a look in Google Analytics; while most websites receive a good percentage of visits from mobile, not all do. If less than 5 percent of your visitors are via mobile (which is unlikely), focus your energies elsewhere.
4. Expense – A mobile solution need not cost a fortune. Use a service like Duda Mobile to make your website compliant for about US$100 per year.
Richard Conway shares the good oil on all things digital marketing from SEO to Google to social media. Richard is CEO at the search engine marketing agency PureSEO and is an advisor to several online businesses. Richard is a global online citizen residing in Auckland, New Zealand.
