On the 21st of April, Google released its ‘Mobilegeddon’ update, which means that they now prioritise mobile-friendly sites over non-mobile friendly ones. Despite the fact that increasing amounts of online traffic comes from a mobile device or tablet, a vast number of websites are still not mobile friendly, so this update is intended to push out non-mobile friendly sites and bring in compatible sites as standard. But what does this mean for your business? Well, if you’re a business with a mobile friendly site then you’re safe, but for those who don’t have a mobile-friendly site… well, let’s just say you may lose out on a substantial amount of business, particularly considering how many people surf the net using their smartphones!
What can businesses do about Mobilegeddon?
Is there a solution to this oncoming problem? It’s pretty simple, actually: make your site mobile friendly. Here at Thunderbolt, we specialise in mobile web development, and build all of our websites to be responsive, so we can absolutely help you safeguard your online presence against the Mobilegeddon update.
You may be thinking, “Why bother making a mobile friendly site, we already have a PC friendly site?”. PC may still generally be the source of most traffic, but if your site is not mobile responsive too, your rankings will start to go down – meaning ultimately that less people will be directed to your site! Much as years ago people didn’t think that “that Internet thing” would catch on, if you think that mobile friendly sites aren’t here to stay, we’re afraid that you’ll probably be regretting your mistake in a few years (or even a few months)!
In our opinion, the best way to ensure that your website is mobile friendly is to make sure that it is responsive. A website that is built to be responsive is highly flexible, as it is compatible on all smartphones/tablets/phablets. Therefore, only one site needs to be created and maintained, rather than creating a separate mobile friendly website in addition to your PC friendly one. Due to the complexity of these sites, their upfront cost can be higher than a separate mobile friendly site, but it’s a lot cheaper the run in the long run.
Anything else to consider?
For those who already have a mobile friendly site, or are having one made, you can help further your business by using SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). In simple terms, SEO is a method of helping your business get from the bottom of page 5 to the top of page 1 on search engines for carefully considered and relevant keywords. For example, say your site is for an equestrian PR agency; our trained SEO experts would use keywords such as equestrian PR, equine PR, and many more throughout all of your online copy, social media and other SEO relevant copy, so that anyone searching for such services would be directed to your website above the sites of your competition.