Mobilegeddon is Coming. Are you Ready?

For the last few weeks, the term “Mobilegeddon” has been tossed around the digital space. It’s followed by words like catastrophic, significant and warning. Needless to say, it has caused quite a commotion in cyberspace. “Why all the dramatics?” It’s because this is the biggest Google update since Panda was released in 2011. The Panda update was an algorithm that dinged sites with poor or thin quality content. After it was released, about 12{97c8730f160c9e508a01140589a480dbe349ea76f955e52d069352d0f8092e99} of websites worldwide saw a huge change in Google rankings. Many plummeted. While Google releases hundreds of updates throughout the year, most of the time the impact on rankings is minimal. These heavy hitting updates, like Panda, are different. Thousands of websites are about to see a dramatic shift in their rankings. So here is what you need to know about the upcoming big Google update.

WHAT IS MOBILEGEDDON?

On April 21st, Google is introducing a major algorithm update making mobile experience a prominent ranking factor. If your website isn’t responsive or doesn’t have a mobile version, be prepared for a shift downward in rankings. What do we mean by “mobile experience”? This is how your website interacts on a mobile device. Mobile isn’t just your phone. It covers the entire gamut of handheld devices, from tablets to iPads to new and old smartphones. Google wants to ensure that the user experience on all screen sizes is a quality one. This update is in response to the increasing percentage of searches being done from mobile devices. Currently, more than 60{97c8730f160c9e508a01140589a480dbe349ea76f955e52d069352d0f8092e99} of searches are on mobile. So in a way, Google is catching up with the times.

WHY IT MATTERS

  The importance of your site’s mobile experience isn’t new as a ranking factor. It has been included in the past, but more as an ambiguous requirement.    Google currently acknowledges when a site is mobile friendly, but the trouble was no one could say how that impacted the rankings. This update will give priority to sites with a strong mobile experience. Reports indicate that this new algorithm will impact rankings more than any of the previous big updates to be rolled out. That includes Panda. Bottom line: your mobile experience matters. And it’s only going to become more important.

WEBSITE TEST

So how do you know if your website is in the clear? If you are concerned about how your site will do, Google has you covered. Just copy and paste your URL into their testing page. But, before you do…

RAINDROP WEBSITES

If you have a Raindrop website, rest easy. It’s already responsive. We pride ourselves on being on the forefront of cutting-edge technology. Any website created by Raindrop in the last four years will be completely mobile friendly. We design our sites to be responsive, automatically adjusting to fit the size of the viewer’s screen. And it matters. Our clients have seen the mobile explosion first hand. Traffic from mobile has been growing dramatically over the last few years. But it has hit a critical mass in the last year. Many clients have seen a 200{97c8730f160c9e508a01140589a480dbe349ea76f955e52d069352d0f8092e99} increase in mobile traffic in 2015!

CONCLUSION

Regardless of the Google update, mobile is going to become an increasingly important element to digital marketing. If you are looking to create a mobile strategy contact us today.