On April 21, 2015, Google released an algorithm that many in the marketing profession are calling Mobilegeddon. Naturally, there has been a lot of talk surrounding the update and for good reason. Is the update really that bad? What can businesses do if they don’t have a mobile friendly website? These are all questions that are still relevant a few years later.
What is the new update, and who will be most affected?
Well for companies that do not have a mobile friendly website, they will begin to see a significant decrease in their rankings. This, of course, means less traffic to their website. Those businesses that possess a mobile responsive website will see a ranking advantage over their competitors. According to an article by USA Today, 40% of the top websites are being penalized from the new update. So you can see why so many people have dubbed the new update as Mobilegeddon. Businesses who are not mobile friendly will either have to update their website or endure the consequences.
Why does mobile friendliness really matter?
Google is all about maintaining relevancy and providing a great user experience. Mobile friendly websites matter because it matters to you and me as the consumers of content. According to Search Engine Watch, 46% of searches are performed exclusively by a mobile device, and this number is increasing every day. We the consumers prefer to view websites that are mobile friendly, so Google is going to feed that demand.
How do you know if your website is mobile friendly?
Google has provided a mobile friendly tool that can be used to determine if your website is mobile responsive. You may simply copy and paste your website’s URL in the given box and click Analyze. This is what it looks like when your website meets the new standard:
If your website does not pass the test, Google will share some information on how you may want to proceed in creating a responsive design. Google looks for how quickly a page loads across a wide range of devices and signal conditions, as well as several other checkpoints. A good start to setting up a mobile-friendly website means it doesn’t block CSS or JS resources, use too-small font sizes, have buttons placed too close together, contain subpages that aren’t also mobile-friendly, and has content that is wider than the screen of whichever mobile device is being used to search.