Mobilegeddon: It’s been a Year . . .

If you don’t remember when Google rolled out the algorithm change that we couldn’t ignore, it was April of 2015. This change, Google promised, was the one had big implications for websites that were not mobile-enabled—if you weren’t accommodating your mobile users, Google would punish you by restricting traffic to your desktop site.

Google created a mobile-friendly test website

Drop your url into a field and click “Analyze”. Google will quickly tell you whether you pass or fail. If you’ve failed, Google tells you what’s wrong with your website. But whether your site passes the test or not, there’s a good chance it’s not really accessible for mobile users—at least 60% growing. If you’re a desktop user, you’re the minority and you’re not paying attention. Go anywhere—an event, to lunch; stand in line at Starbucks or Peets in the morning. People are accessing everything on their phones. And think about those in jobs that don’t allow folks to sit down at a computer—these people rely on their phones for information delivery—anyone in sales, healthcare, transportation, etc. It’s endless.

Oddly, there wasn’t a scramble to create new websites

For those of us in the web or internet marketing business, we talked about Mobilegeddon to our clients, we blogged about it and tried to make people understand the implications. But let’s be realistic. Creating a new website is a huge initiative for any company. It requires a budget, committing resources and hiring a web design developer and content developer and buying images. All of this takes time, and most folks already have their day jobs and they’re drowning. It’s important, but it’s a website, and it’s just one communication channel.

Mobilegeddon: less apocalyptic than expected

Now, with almost a year’s worth of data, the impact of Mobilegeddon has been less apocalyptic than expected. Most online analysts now believe Mobilegeddon lacked the finality its name suggested. In the days after the mobile-friendly update, content marketing company BrightEdge  tracked more than 20,000 URLs and suggested that the number of non-mobile friendly pages on the first three pages of the SERPs was down 21%. Other reports suggested the concentration of non-mobile friendly URLs in the mobile search results dropped by as much as 50%. Yet research is showing that non-mobile friendly sites weren’t suffering as much as everyone predicted.

If the effect on traffic hasn’t been significant, was the mobile-friendly update really worth it? From a user-experience perspective, the general consensus is yes. Serving more mobile-friendly websites more often in mobile search results is a no-brainer. The sales of smartphones is increasing, and if you’ve stood in a crowd of millennials recently, you know the answer to this one.

Take a pragmatic approach and simplify

Regardless of Mobilegeddon, a website has a shelf life and it’s not unlikely that yours is due for an update, and you’re going to want to be thinking about responsive design—that which will translate seamlessly across all media—desktop, tablet and smartphones. All of the platforms have themes, or templates, that feature responsive design, including WordPress, Wix and SquareSpace.

Think about mobile users as you start planning your new website

Mobile has had a tremendous influence on the way that websites are now being designed

The format is simplified—gone are columns, complexity and multiple moving parts. There’s less drilldown because scrolling is more efficient when using mobile devices. Navigation is simplified, along with color palettes, design and images. Make sure that the “hamburger” navigation element is prominent at the top of the page and that contact information is accessible on all screens. Make adjustments if phone numbers and email addresses are in tiny fonts and difficult to read. Try to avoid reverse type—it’s often difficult to read as well. Remember that not everyone is a millennial with 20/20 vision. Make it easy for people to get information.  

Are you planning a new website for 2016? Talk to us at Top of Mind Marketing. We’re content marketing experts.

Ready to take Google's Mobile-Friendly Test?

If you’re still in denial about the importance of mobile devices, it’s time to drag yourself out of Sleepy Hollow. It’s been nearly a year since Mobilegeddon, Google’s fateful algorithm change that punishes websites that are not optimized for mobile devices. If you’re a desktop user who blissfully sits in front of your computer all day, you are becoming the minority. There is a growing population, an estimated 60+%, that accesses nearly everything from their phones.

Google’s test site for mobile friendliness

Google developers have created a Mobile-Friendly Test Site where you can paste your url into a field to test its mobile readiness. It will show you what it looks like on a smartphone, and you’ll get a report that says, “Awesome. This page is mobile-friendly” or one that says “Not mobile-friendly.” If you’re not mobile friendly, it will show that:

• Text is too small to read
• Links are too close together
• Mobile viewport is notset

 Time to ask yourself some hard questions

If you passed the test, congratulations. If not, here are some things to consider:

• Technology. You will want to think about when your site was created, in what platform it was built.
• Accessibility. Can you access it yourself or do you have to rely on someone else for updates? New technologies such as WordPress make it easy to add pages, swap out content and upload images.
• What about the overall design and navigation? Are they still appropriate and efficient or dated and cumbersome?
• Content. This is the tough one. Is this even relevant anymore? Has your company grown, added products, services and people who aren’t represented on the site?

To update or create a brand new site?

In some cases, you can update your site to make it mobile-friendly. But in general, if your site is more than a few years old, it was probably built in a dated technology that’s difficult to manage, and it’s more cost-effective to create a new one. If you have to wait around for your web person to surface in order to make small edits, it’s time to change the model. You could make the changes yourself while you’re detailing your instructions to him/her and save yourself time and money.

While a new website can seem like a huge undertaking, it’s an excellent opportunity to create a site that’s representative of your business as it is today. For many small businesses, their websites represent their single biggest marketing spend, yet they’re not generating any ROI, so this is a chance to change the model. Your website says a lot about you. Well-written content, thoughtful navigation and good design go a long way towards validating you as an industry expert.

Did you fail Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test? Let’s talk about a new website @ Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and digital media experts.

New SEO: Forget Tricks and Focus on Quality Content

Google makes algorithm changes an astonishing 500–600 times/year. For the most part, we ignore these changes—who, after all, can keep up with what Google, and most of these changes are minor. But Google occasionally rolls out major algorithmic updates—you’ve probably heard of Google’s Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird updates that affect search results in significant ways. Its latest major update is being referred to as Mobilegeddon because of its far-reaching effect on websites that don’t translate to mobile devices.

Changes include an emphasis on high-quality content

But this isn’t just content marketing. You really have to understand Google’s overarching goal for search, keeping in mind that Google owns the search space. What you need to know: we’re no longer focusing on keywords, but on content—and that means quality content.

Forget the tricks to optimize your website 

We used to identify keywords, then load our landing pages with those keywords. This is no longer an acceptable strategy; in fact, keyword loading is something for which Google apparently punishes you. Avoid the tricks that SEO had really become—a bag of tricks for ensuring your pages could rank well without your having to do any real marketing.

Think about it—you really didn’t have to provide thoughtful or creative content. Instead, you thought about keywords, linking strategies and trying to show up on page one of Google—at least for a day or two until the algorithms changed once again. But while we’d all rather show up on page one than 50, there are those who point out that showing up on page two or three is not a bad thing. I always tell my clients that you really have two audiences: you want to show up on search engines, but you also need to provide a compelling reason for people to contact you once they land on your website. A high ranking doesn’t necessarily translate to conversion.

Google’s content guidelines

With the significant algorithm changes, Google has published content guidelines that clearly spell out what they’re looking for. These are their exact words to elicit high quality content:

1. Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines.
2. Don’t deceive your users.
3. Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings.
4. Think about what makes your website unique, valuable, or engaging. Make your website stand out from others in your field.

I keep coming back to a quote I read a while back. If you want your site to show up in search engines, invest in good writing. “You can no longer game the system. Quality content has become nonnegotiable.”

Quality content has never been more important. I’d love to talk with you if you have questions. Contact me at Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and content marketing experts.