It’s been just about 3 weeks since the Google-driven “Mobilegeddon” was rolled out, an algorithm starting to rank websites that were mobile-friendly and responsive higher than those sites that were not. Now that the dust has settled, many wonder what the impacts have been.
The short answer? There are really no substantial results…yet.
At present, Google’s own admins have calmed many by stating that mobile-friendliness, while increasingly important to sites as mobile usage grows, is still only one of a few hundred signals that the search engine uses to determine site ranking. While it is most certainly advised, not having a mobile responsive site does not mean that your site dissolves. It simply means that you will not rank highly within those parameters. If your site has a high quantity of high-quality content then your site will still be able to attain a relatively high ranking.
However, looking at the big picture – yes, you should want to make your site mobile friendly –it only makes sense for the advancement of your business and brand as more and more people utilize their mobile devices to access the internet. But does this mean devastation for your site if it isn’t? Does it mean that you should stress out? Absolutely not. Keep an eye on your site analytics and demographics to see not only who is visiting your website, but how they are accessing it. Over time, you’ll presumably see more and more visitors using a mobile device, and with that, you’ll definitely want to make your site both responsive and mobile-friendly to optimize your conversion.
Keep this in mind – the younger the audience, the more they’ll be using their mobile devices to access the web.
Our advice? The impacts of a change to the Google algorithm can often take weeks or months to fully realize, so work to make your site mobile-friendly at your earliest opportunity. The jury is still out on this one, but once the dust does settle, you’ll find it hard as a non-mobile friendly site to compete against those sites who are mobile-friendly (take this as our gentle prodding). Set a course of action for yourself, give yourself a deadline to become mobile-friendly, and execute.
