It’s very likely that your website is not prepared for Google’s Mobile-Friendly algorithm update coming in late April, 2015. 

We’re seeing a lot of companies with high traffic websites; the kind that are critical to day-to-day business, that are currently not mobile-friendly.

In many cases the site owners are hip to responsive design: They know they need it as we see it as a requirement in proposal requests. Often times though, despite knowing they need to make the transition, it gets put off and delayed.

“We do have plans, but mobile users can still use the site by panning and zooming in the meantime,” is a sentiment I often hear.

If this sounds like you, you may want to step up those plans as an update to Google’s search algorithm in April will be giving non-mobile-friendly sites a kick in the pants. By kick in the pants, I mean: the site’s ranking on mobile devices may drop drastically in organic search results.

Google stated in February, “Starting April 21, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results.”

How to Prepare for the Mobile-Friendly Update

Lots of people are freaking out over this but, here are some do’s and don’ts we’ve come up with regarding this upcoming update:

  • Don’t: freak out. Freaking out in general is never a good idea. In theory, based on Google’s statement, this change should not impact your rankings for Desktop searches. We don’t know that for certain of course but, based on what they are saying, if you have a non-mobile-friendly site you are not going to rank as well for users searching on mobile devices, but should not see any adverse effects when it comes to your desktop users.It’s also important to note that mobile-friendly does not necessarily mean responsive in Google’s eyes. For example, if you have an m.whateveryoururlis.com site for mobile users vs desktop, this update should still look at your site favorably since it is technically mobile-friendly.
  • Do: see what Google thinks of your site with regards to mobile friendliness. You can use their testing tool to see. We got the “Awesome! This page is mobile-friendly.” That’s what you want! Chances are you already have an idea of what Google is going to tell you before you run it.Note that I have run it against sites that are not responsive but have separate mobile sites (e.g. using DudaMobile) and I still get the “Awesome” message.
  • Do: look at your site traffic and see what percentage of your traffic is mobile. This will likely further confirm the need to have a responsive mobile-friendly site. For example, our site’s traffic is still heavy on desktop users.This makes sense in a lot of respects as companies looking for a digital agency are typically doing so over desktop as they are often in a corporate environment, want to view our full portfolio, and meet members of our team. This is reflected in our traffic for the past month: 77% of our users were desktop, 19% mobile and 4% tablet. 19% is still a big number! As I was creating this blog post I rolled through a number of analytics accounts. The percentage of mobile users varied and was interesting to observe the following percentages of mobile visitors for these industries:
    • 12% for a manufacturer
    • 29% for a home builder
    • 36% for a doctor
    • 13% for a commercial construction company
    • 22% for a real estate agency
    • 36% for a B2C ecommerce site.

These numbers don’t even take tablets into account. Of all the accounts I looked at, 12% was the lowest % mobile users I saw. Know your percent of mobile traffic. Are you prepared to kiss most of that traffic goodbye? The answer should be a resounding no, especially as all trends indicate these numbers will only grow.

  • Don’t: freak out. Just to reiterate, no use in freaking out. These algorithms take time to roll out. If you are reading this and don’t have a mobile-friendly site you likely aren’t getting one by April 21 anyhow.
  • Do: have a plan. Put a plan in place to get your site mobile-friendly, and let that not be the only objective. Use this update as an opportunity. How can you use this new site release to convey your brand essence better, reflect your company culture, have a cohesive content strategy, sell more product or services?

Time is of the essence but, it’s best not to rush and make knee-jerk reactions. Leverage this next release and make a meaningful impact on your business, customers and prospects versus just making your site mobile-friendly.

The picture below was created in jest, mostly. We are not alarmists – we leave that to the mainstream media.

However, the bottom line is if your site isn’t currently mobile friendly, you need to start putting together a game plan to make it so.