Mobilegeddon? SEO for Mobiles in Review.
Mobilepocalypse, mobocalypse, mopocalypse or Mobilegeddon – whatever you want to call it, it seems like it’s all anyone’s talking about recently is SEO for Mobiles.
. For good reason, too, since in eleven days Google’s mobile-friendly algorithm will be inflicted upon us all. Perhaps some of the panic stems from Google’s black and white treatment of the issue – your site is either mobile-friendly or it isn’t, there’s no grey area in-between.
Or perhaps it’s knowing that most users don’t look past the first results page, hey, the stats are hard to ignore!
It’s probably a bit of both, with a little bit of misunderstanding and misinformation spurring on the fear. So, it may well seem like the end of the world for you and your business, but should you really be worried about it?
Yes and No.
Yes, if your website is not mobile-friendly then the signs suggest that your site will probably suffer in terms of positions as a result.
No, if your website is not mobile-friendly by the 21st, then you will not suffer indefinitely. Your website is likely to rank lower and traffic will more than likely decline as a result, but only until you make the appropriate changes.
That’s a point pretty well put forward by Adam Dorfman here.
As explained by Dorfman, don’t panic – if you are going to put your time, money and effort into optimizing your site then you may as well do a good job of it and reap the rewards a little later. Ultimately, optimising your site for mobile usage is about improving user experience and giving your customers what they want – a site that looks good and works well on their mobile device.
There’s some advice here on whether to have a dedicated mobile site or responsive design, which is a pretty good place to start if you haven’t already.
On that note, if this is somewhat of a surprise to you or you don’t quite understand what the fuss is about then you really should invest some time in understanding your customers. Around half of all people, depending on what statistics you look at, search using mobile devices.
On the tiny screens, sites which are not optimised (SEO for mobiles) are often incredibly difficult or even impossible to use, and if your users cannot easily use your site then they won’t bother at all.
As users we’re demanding, impatient and selfish, and you need to fulfil our every need or we simply won’t buy from you. We’re a little like a naughty child, except you actually lose more money if you don’t fulfil our every fancy.
It now seems to be obvious that your site needs to become mobile friendly as soon as possible to remain competitive, but if you’ve already done the works then you shouldn’t sit twiddling your thumbs for long!
There’s always work to be done in terms of tech compliance, Structured Data anyone?
