Post-Mobilegeddon: It’s not too late, but…

With much fan-fare, Google’s push for more mobile-friendly sites (dubbed Mobilegeddon) rolled out April 21,2015.  As the dust settles, we’ve learned some things about it’s immediate impact and how it is reshaping how new websites are being built. Here’s what you need to know (the quick and dirty). – Businesses lost (and are losing) search traffic by not being mobile-friendly. For certain queries, websites are ranking higher in phone/tablet searches than they do in desktop searches; simply because the site that previously ranked higher is not mobile friendly. If you still haven’t seen any examples of this, you should check out Glenn Gabe’s growing list. – Mobile search rankings are become VERY different from desktop search rankings. Search engines are optimizing search results for desktops AND phones/tablets, and what we’re left with is phone/tablet search results that aren’t the same as what you’d see on a desktop or laptop. This actually isn’t new though. In June 2014, we started seeing the difference and Bright Edge reported that mobile search results were 62% different than desktop results. – If you’re not optimized for mobile devices now, it’s only going to get worse. Google recently reported that there are officially more smartphone than desktop searches in the U.S. Wait, what? I know, I had to read that twice too. This is what they say, “more Google searches take place on mobile devices than on computers in 10 countries including the US and Japan.” As this number continues to grow, we may see an even larger stratification of mobile versus desktop searches. So, if you’re not yet mobile-friendly, make it happen! In this new era of mobile SEO, it’s no longer possible to ignore mobile searchers and still compete with those who do.