It was only a matter of time.
Google has started slowly rolling out an update that will negatively impact each and every one of you that have non-responsive or non-mobile-friendly websites.
Here's a sample of what it looks like, brought to you by SearchEngineLand.
What's the difference? Do you see it? Both are searches done on mobile devices. On the picture on the left, you'll see a little icon next to the URL showing that the website is NOT friendly for mobile devices.
On the right, you'll see a green icon next to the URL showing that it IS friendly for mobile devices.
Uh oh.
Let's dive into this a little deeper.
First of all - chances are good that many of you reading this are already making excuses.
"You don't have to pinch and zoom on my website TOO much from a mobile device."
"People searching for me or my properties aren't using mobile devices."
"It's just an icon."
"It costs too much money to fix."
STOP. Right now. Enough of the excuses. Because all I hear is "blah blah blah I don't care if I lose half of the traffic coming to my website."
HALF? That's right.
A comScore report published in July found that smartphones and tables combined now make up 60 percent of all online traffic. That number is up from 50 percent just a year ago. Of that number, 51 percent is driving by mobile apps including Facebook and Twitter.
Check out these trends. It's mind blowing.
So with numbers like this - why is it that so many businesses in this industry still aren't optimized for mobile?
Listen - at this point in the game, it's NOT more expensive. As a matter of fact, our web development arm of The Silent Partner almost ALWAYS has come in priced better than the competition...which in many cases doesn't even offer responsive websites. It blows my mind how many companies are out there telling you that you need to spend money on a "desktop site" AND a "mobile site". Then they try and sell you on an app for your business. What year are these companies living in?
Your website should respond to whatever device it's opened on - whether it's desktop, mobile or tablet.
Not only that, but you should have in place analytics so that you're tracking and measuring not just HOW people are viewing your website, but what traffic does when it gets there. Here's how I recommend you drill down the data.
1) How many people are coming to your website?
2) What percentage is viewing from mobile devices (analyze tablets vs. phones).
3) What TYPES of mobile devices are they coming in from?
4) Of the people accessing your site from mobile, what's their next move? What percentage dive deeper into your site...vs. what percentage of people bounce off after hitting the first page?
5) Do you see a particularly high bounce rate with a specific mobile device? Time to analyze how your site is being viewed from that device.
6) What towns bring you the largest percentage of mobile users vs. desktop? What does your marketing look like specific to those towns? What is the demographic like of those towns?
7) How good are your calls-to-action? What's your closing ratio on traffic from mobile vs. desktop?
8) How have you incorporated video into your desktop vs. mobile websites?
9) Do you make it easy for people to follow you on social media as a result of a mobile visit to your site?
10) People are accessing you on devices with 4K resolution. So are you showing native resolution photos and high definition video...or are you showing JUNK?
I sure hope you'll share this with colleagues - because it's a HUGE red flag of moves to come with Google in terms of how businesses will be ranked. And share in the comments below...are you responsive? What's your plan? And how are you measuring success?
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