Take a look around the next time while you’re out in public — or look up from your phone right now — I think it’s safe to assume that the majority of passerby’s you will come across are looking down at one place, their cell phones. With a staggering 1.17 billion searches happening on Google each month, I guess we can all agree as to what devices are responsible for a large majority of those searches. Mobile searches are quickly rising and trumping the majority of searches that used to come from a desktop computer or laptop. As a result, Google is once again updating their algorithm.
Something is happening to Mobile!?
Is this important news to you? Well let’s start here first, do you currently have a mobile website for your business? Is your current website responsive and working seamlessly across all devices? If not, you may want to consider a new mobile strategy because this update affects everyone!
Who does update this affect?
The change to Google’s algorithm is focused on mobile and serving as one of the most significant shift’s to date. To be able to provide the most relevant content via search results, Google must continuously update their algorithms and as that happens a small percentage of websites are usually penalized due to bad SEO practices. This new update Google plans to roll out very soon will affect all websites.
What does this mean to everyone?
Think about how many times you’ve searched something on your mobile device only to be lead to the desktop version of a website. The buttons are tiny, the text is small, there is a box that keeps popping up but the alignment is off screen and every time you try to hit the X it jumps back off screen. Yes, we’ve all been there and Google plans to put an end to it.
It’s as simple as this, if your website is not responsive or optimized for mobile, your chances of showing in search will be affected as that is now where the majority of search is coming from. Technology is expeditiously changing the way people interact and consume content, our daily habits are changing at an exponential rate and the most significant shift within the past few years has been the rise of mobile technologies as well as our addiction to them.
When is this happening?
After reading all of that, you can see how important it is to implement a mobile strategy if you have not already set one in place. And the time to do it is now, literally, like right now, this update comes into effect as of April 21, 2015.
If the boundless world of SEO is something you’ve avoided for your business simply due to inexperience, this does not mean that the practical plan moving forward is to continue to avoid these changes. You can get help and it is all in the art of asking.
Where to find help!
The internet is a confusing place and trying to understand how Google works is even more confusing, but, we have people who can help. Feel free to reach out to one of our mobile strategists at any time with questions via @TrueMerchant or simply by emailing us!
