You have worked your way up the SEO rankings and you have finally reached that magical spot on the first page listing on Google. You are getting more leads than ever, more website views… life is good. However, that is all about to change due to Google’s mobile-friendly algorithm that is set to take effect starting April 21st. This new algorithm will penalize sites that are not mobile-friendly by downranking them. Google is promoting a good user experience for each and every one of their users, many of whom are cruising Google via their smartphones. With the massive increase of smartphone users and smartphone web surfers in the past few years, it should come as no surprise that Google has made this move. There’s a great saying, “Desktop is conquered territory. Mobile is the battlefield.” Walk down the street and you are likely to find that most of the people you pass are talking on their phone or have it in their hand. When we are not by our computers and need to search for information, we aren’t going to wait until we get by a computer to search for it; we’re going to pull it up on our phones! We expect instant gratification. People want information and they want it now, not later.
Related: Search Engine Optimization Tips
Imagine searching for a restaurant to go to tonight. You are on your smartphone and stumble across the website associated with that restaurant. Unfortunately, that website is not configured to be mobile-friendly. Most people are more likely to click off the site and try again on another site, with the end result being a loss of business for the non-mobile-friendly restaurant and a gain for a mobile optimized one. Many sites that are not mobile-friendly still pull up with a “404 error code” or are re-directed, meaning a huge loss of views and, consequently, leads. Faulty redirects are when a site has been using two different URL’s, one for mobile users and the other for desktop users. When a mobile user attempts to pull up the site with the mobile URL, it gets redirected to an irrelevant page on the site, causing confusion and annoyance. Sites that include flash content in videos will also be down ranked. Videos that need Adobe Flash to play are not operative on mobile devices and therefore, useless for the smartphone user. Unless changes are made, any site with these criterions will be down ranked after April 21st.
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At Up And Social, we do not want you to worry about this new Google ranking change. If you have worked with us on your website in the past, your website already meets Google’s new algorithm and your page ranking will not be affected. However, if you have not worked with us on your website and are concerned that your site does not meet the mobile-friendly requirements that Google has now set across, please contact us. One way to figure out if you will fall victim to this down ranking by Google is by testing your website (each and every page) on as many devices as you can, including: tablets, Android phones, iPhones (4, 5 and 6) and more. You would be surprised at how websites can appear differently across these different platforms. We would be happy to reconfigure your site so that smartphone users everywhere can access it with the ease and simplicity that they deserve. You should not have to lose leads because of this new algorithm. In fact, if you work with us to configure your site for mobile users, you should actually see an increase in leads and website views.
Related: Getting Started Guide for Google+
Going mobile means less content (or a simplified version) of your website being shown to smartphone users, but that is in no way a negative thing. People love simplification. The perfect scenario to your customers would be to have fewer steps to get them to where they want to go. Mobile users do not go on a site to see the bells and whistles, they go to get information. Leave the bells and whistles for the desktop version and give only the most important and necessary information to the mobile users. Also, allowing your site to be accessed by many different types of devices means getting access to many different types of demographics and markets. For example, if you are primarily on desktop and find that your main demographic is 40-50 year olds, going mobile may increase sales from a younger demographic. If you have not gone mobile yet, you could be missing out on a huge chunk of untapped market which could be the missing link in your business. The world is increasingly more and more mobile. Sticking with desktop is a surefire way to failure. Going mobile is the path to success. Let us take you there.
