Google officially confirmed that they are now receiving more searches from mobile devices than on desktop computers across 10 countries, including the US and Japan. As a result a new algorithm change has been rolled out, which has been nicknamed ‘mobilegeddon’.
The update is aimed at giving a boost in rankings to mobile friendly pages within the mobile search results. If you’re unsure whether or not your site is considered mobile friendly by Google, they have released a tool to help assess your sites mobile readiness; you can find the tool here – https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/
At the beginning of the month Google confirmed that the mobile friendly algorithm has now been fully rolled out, what began on 21st April to ’score’ websites based off their mobile responsiveness is now in full effect, since indexing takes some time, a number of mobile friendly pages may however still be awaiting their score.
If you haven’t got a mobile friendly site yet, there’s no need to panic. Once your site has been updated you can submit it to Google for re-indexing and within anywhere from a few hours to around 72 hours, Google will update to show your site as mobile friendly.
So why is being mobile friendly so important?
Figures from Google show that around 50% of consumers that search for a product from their mobile, will visit the bricks and mortar store within a day of making the search, with 1 in 3 users searching on their phone just before visiting or whilst in store to perform a price comparison.
Even if you don’t have a bricks and mortar store, with the prevalence of smart phones the number of people using their mobile devices to make purchasing decisions is growing day by day. A report from Fleishman-Hillard found that 89 percent of consumers turn to Google or another search engine to find information on products, services or businesses prior to making purchases or bookings.
The impact of mobile friendliness for your business
The best place to start when assessing the impact of ‘Mobilegeddon’ on your business is to look at Google Analytics, your web developer should be able to assist you in accessing this information. If not already setup, it is highly recommended you install Analytics so that you can begin to gather information to make informed decisions regarding your business website based of real user data.
Google Analytics will show you how many people visiting your website are visiting from different types of devices – mobile, tablet and desktop. You can also go into further detail looking at how long these visitors stay on the site and how they interact with it.
Once you know how many of your customers are buying your product or booking your services from their mobile whilst in front of the TV or before bed; you’ll be in a much stronger position to access the impact of “Mobilegeddon’ for your business directly.