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Marketing Insights

Google's Mobile Update - What Happened?

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It was billed as the 'Mobile-geddon' event.  On April 21 2015 Google rolled out their mobile update. It was to be pure mayhem, websites quite possibly dissapearing overnight and never to be seen again!  We'll what happened? How has your site fared?   We're you mobile ready? Google algo updates that happen frequently and the mobile requirement was a trending topic for months in advance and after the launch of the requirement of a site to be responsive. I still find sites that are not mobile friendly and it is almost a year since the "Mobilgetton Scare". I just turn my phone horizontally and most are legible.

Is Google sneaky? Or could it be that they act like any other company and do what they want?  Unfortunately their updates affects us all or at least those that have a website. The bottom line seems to fall into Google's advice that if you want your site to rank high it has to be a site of 'quality'.  What does that mean?  That means - all the standard things you would think a quality site would be - the content it contains is Useful to the visitor.  If it's about cooking, then it contains content visitors want to consume such as interesting images, inbound links, especially from other quality sites, a lot social shares. All the things any site would want. Since the topic is avout the mobile update let's pull back and look at what makes a good mobile site and what you should consider when updating your site or mobile site.

Here are a few small mistakes on mobile pages that can make a big difference and ultimately hurt your search rankings to look out for:

Videos That Won't Play

Half of local searches happen on mobile devices, and that means you need to videos that will play on desktop PCs, laptops, and smartphones and tablets. Many webpages still use Flash players; any Web design company or strategic marketing professional will tell you that's a bad idea. These videos won't play on all devices, and that will only frustrate your customers and possibly even turn them away. And Gigacom reports that visitors will leave afetr 2 seconds if the video hasn't started.

Speed Is A Major Concern For Mobile Users

As of an April 2013 survey, Internet users waited only 2.078 seconds for pages to load. People have only gotten more impatient over time -- and users expect faster loading pages on mobile as they are typically on their devices while out and about, and busy. Just about everyone has had at least one experience with a mobile page taking forever to load -- and you don't want to be the one creating those experiences.

Avoid common mistakes for the best possible experience with Google's ongoing updates and include web maintenance funds in your budget. If you haven't redesigned your site in 4 years and you site isn't mobile friendly you risk loosing a lot more business to your savy competitors who are investing in their web presence.

Want to read more:  Why Google Requires Mobile Responsive Sites

 Download Our Free Resource 10 Steps to Build a Better Website.

 

Topics: Ecommerce, Website Design

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