The latest algorithm change that Google rolled out April 21st this year could be a great opportunity and a blessing in disguise for a lot of businesses.
The algorithm, which has lovingly been nicknamed Mobilegeddon, now favors mobile-friendly websites for all searches carried out on mobile devices. The change only affects search results done on mobile devices and therefore you won’t find any changes affecting your searches done on your laptop or desktop.
But seeing that more than 60% of all searches these days are done on a mobile device the algorithm change is to be considered extremely important. In the extreme version, if your website is not mobile friendly, then you may just have lost 60% of all your online traffic (60% of all your new potential customers has just been eliminated from your business).
If your website is not mobile-friendly and you still have not noticed any changes in your inbound calls and connections from new potential customers, then it might just be a matter of time before you will. Google specifically has stated that crawling and re-indexing the websites may take a little time, but the effect will take place.
There’s a great post by Google that offers you more insights to the algorithm changes that I highly recommend you check out. You can find it here: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2015/04/faqs-april-21st-mobile-friendly.html
So why could this algorithm change potentially be a blessing in disguise for your business?
Well, although there’s been a lot of commotion for the past few years about recommendations for websites to be mobile friendly, there are still a huge amount of the websites out there that are not in fact mobile-friendly. In addition, an incredible number of businesses are still not paying attention to the algorithm change that now is a fact. In truth, I believe, it’s a bit of the Peter And The Wolf syndrome that is the cause of this.
For months if not years, we have probably all received a ton of uninvited spam emails in our inboxes that offers us website designs, improved traffic to our websites, SEO solutions and much more. We all hate the spam and yet they continue endlessly. I guess, it’s a numbers game and that whoever sends them out actually do pick up a little business here and there.
But I suspect most of us just discard them, delete them and move out. And rightly so. However, this time the urgency may be well worth your attention. Perhaps not by giving the spammers your business (I personally don’t wish to support any spammers, regardless of how great their offer sounds), but by finding a company that you would trust to handle your online business.
Just Google “Google April 21” and skim some of the articles and posts. Look at especially the posts from Google themselves to see that this is not just some scheme in order to sell new web designs or new solutions you don’t need.
No, the algorithm change is real and it already has been implemented.
I have written previously that the changes in the Google algorithm make perfect sense and really actually helps us all to a better search experience on our mobile device.
Personally, I don’t really love to look up stuff on my smart phone, but invariably I need to find some piece of information while on the go and will of course pull out my phone and tap in the key words. In fact, just like most of people, I guess I’m doing it more and more (even without really thinking about it).
The experience on the mobile device has up till now been less than sublime. How often have you not looked up a site on your smart phone only to find that it appeared as a regular website entirely, which requires of you to zoom in and out and pan around for you to actually read the content or find the information you are looking for seeing that you are looking at it from a very small screen?
We have all been there. Sucks doesn’t it.
No, a mobile-friendly website will make things very easily read on even your small smart phone screen and will offer you ease of navigation. Typically when on the go, you are just looking for some quick facts so you can move on (e.g. a phone, number, an address or a quick insight to the business or such).
When most of all web searches have moved to the mobile devices then Google must implement changes to improve user experiences and that’s exactly what their latest algorithm change is doing.
But when a huge amount of businesses are still not waking up to the fact of the algorithm change and to the fact that they really stand to lose a lot of new business if they don’t ensure that their websites are mobile-friendly, then it opens up for much greater opportunities to the businesses that do. In fact, it may actually offer a head start to small businesses with smaller budgets to improve their Google search rankings, when most resource rich businesses or your nearest competitors are still asleep at the wheel.
In other words, since a lot of businesses are not paying attention, it might actually be a lot easier to get good ranking for those who are paying attention as the competition now is lessened. You may not have this great of a chance to get found for the keywords that make sense for your business for ever though. At some point I suspect that all websites (or at least most) will have been converted to mobile-friendly sites, but for now, there’s a window open and it makes great sense to make use of it.
One of my companies, Amazing Ideas Inc., helps businesses get up to speed with their websites and turn them mobile-friendly so they have a fighting chance of getting found and get more new customers walking in their doors. If you would like to discuss how we can help your website conform to a mobile-friendly and ranking website, we will be happy to spend some time with you. Just go to www.amazingideasinc.com and reach out to us.
For sure, if you do not make use of us at Amazing Ideas Inc., then we would still highly recommend that you get your website in order for you to show up in the Google searches, including the 60% or so that are done on mobile devices. Not ensuring that your website is mobile-friendly is about the biggest mistake you can make these days online. It’s an easy fix (relatively speaking) and your investment in doing so will surely be showing a great return quickly by the extra new business you will be picking up.
To check whether your website is mobile-friendly, use this little tool from Google:
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