Nathan RobersonIt isn’t surprising to most who work in the world of search engine optimization to hear that Google is yet again creating or updating an algorithm that will surely throw things off track for website owners, developers, and content writers giving it their all to keep up with the pace. In the last two years, the numbers of changes made to existing Google algorithms and the release of new algorithms like Hummingbird are staggering in comparison to the numbers of updates in years past. But the newest kid on the block focuses narrowly and exclusively on mobile site efficacy and visibility in SERPs. What do you need to know to keep from getting washed away in the undertow?
If your website isn’t mobile-ready yet, make it that way (May 29, 2015). The flowchart below can help.
Market research and surveys suggest that, depending on the demographic, somewhere between 20 and 60 percent of people are accessing the Web more from their smartphones today than they are on their desk or laptops. Everyone is on the go — ordering a new pair of Chucks online while waiting in line at the grocery checkout is the new normal whether you’re a busboy or the CEO of a giant corporation.
Sources in the know are suggesting that this “mobile friendly” update will have a deeper and more pervasive impact on more websites than any other algorithm in Google’s entire collective history. That’s a mouthful. This isn’t a drill or something you can opt out of… unless you just don’t want to be seen online.
Make sure your website functions seamlessly on mobile devices
No matter how glossy, pristine, and glorious your high rent website looks on a desktop or laptop, if it gets clustered or difficult to navigate on tablets, smartphones, and phablets, you’re going to get dinged into oblivion — hence the moniker, Mobilegeddon. The most important factors to consider to keep Mobilegeddon from affecting your site are load times, ease of mobile navigation, superior link placement that utilizes relevant anchor text, and a surrounding body of top notch human reader friendly content. A bunch of keyword phrases crammed together to get search engine attention will actually cause even more problems than those caused by Mobilegeddon alone. The bottom line: easy to navigate webpages with highly visible navigation bars/menus plus well executed wordsmithing to entice robots and humans in equal measure.
And last but certainly not least, the best way to stave off certain doom of the “friendly” algorithm is to ensure your website is coded in HTML5: this will allow your website to geolocate potential consumers, bring super high-def videos and images that smartphone users crave, and allow what may have been a busy, poorly structured website look tidy and slick on mobile devices. Oh, and it will keep you from falling prey to Mobilegeddon — an important little aside.
Infographic original source, courtesy of Wpromote
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