Google Mobile Search Update - What you need to know now.
What's this Google Mobile change I've been hearing about?
Well, for one, it’s the biggest web development news on the Web in a while. Google is putting its heft behind mobile in a big way, encouraging website administrators to ensure that their websites are not just mobile compatible, but also mobile-optimized. As is typical of Google, they’re providing high-level advisory about the upcoming changes, but not getting overly granular into the details. Here’s Google's actual announcement if you want it straight from the horse’s mouth. This is set to begin on or shortly after April 21st, and the intent is for mobile users to get more mobile-optimized content in their search results on Google.
Am I in trouble?
Test your site and find out. Google provided the Google Mobile-Friendly Test tool, with which you can easily test your website to see if Google considers it to be mobile-optimized or not. With the Mobile-Friendly Test tool you’ll either get a green “Awesome! This page is mobile-friendly” message or a red “Not mobile-friendly” message. If you have Google Webmaster Tools setup, you may also test it using the Mobile Usability Report in that tool.
How bad is it?
Probably not too bad, and here’s why: The Google announcement says that this change only affects search results for mobile searchers, and reports say that Google confirmed this change will not affect search rankings for desktop users. So, when a mobile user enters a search from their mobile phone, Google’s algorithm will return a set of results that is ranked (sorted) differently than it would for the same query results entered on the desktop. If your site isn’t mobile-optimized, Google will rank another website that is mobile-optimized slightly higher for those same terms. They will not obliterate your site altogether from the results, but Google warns that it will have a significant impact in its search results. We’ll know more after they roll it out, and as for how much impact this will have on your site… only time will tell.
Our clients see a wide range of mobile traffic, from as little as 8% to as much as 40% depending on their audience and user personas. Luckily, the lion’s share of it often comes from direct visitors (i.e. – most of our website visitors type some variation of “RubensteinTech” or “rubensteintech.com” to go directly to our website). If your site gets a ton of mobile traffic, then you are probably already mobile-optimized (or, we at least recommend you be already!).
Will I be left behind if I don’t update my site?
Well, yes. But you knew that already, didn’t you? In technology’s forever forward march, we all must continue to evolve or die. Many firms take a somewhat revolutionary approach to their websites, letting them sit idly for 3 – 5 years, and then doing a large-scale redesign and relaunch in an attempt to catch up. Rather than this approach, we recommend that you routinely work on your site, making steady, iterative, and evolutionary changes on a regular (at least annual, if not quarterly) basis. This approach not only ensures that you keep abreast of the latest technological advances, but it also allows you to continue to progress and tweak the rough edges of your site’s user experience, which is key to conveying your brand to your users online.
The bottom-line is that this change will currently only affect mobile user Google search. It doesn’t affect the other search engines, and it doesn’t affect users on desktop browsers. For now. It’s certain that the other search engines (yes, there are still search engines other than Google!) will quickly follow suit in optimizing mobile results for mobile users, adopting the same search results biasing that Google has announced. And, I’m sure that a global change where desktop search results will also be influenced by mobile optimization isn’t far behind – my guess is 6 – 9 months.
Is there a quick fix?
Probably not. It’s unclear specifically which of the features Google examines when it considers whether a site is “mobile-friendly” or not, but we know that it considers:
- Font size for mobile users
- Website viewport settings
- Size of site navigation links/buttons for mobile users
- Proximity of small links to one another (which would result in users accidentally tapping on the wrong link or navigation element)
For a website that’s already mobile-compatible, it’s possible that a few days worth of targeted tweaks could serve to bring it to conform to Google’s standard for mobile-friendliness. One possible quick fix is to focus just on one, or a few, specific pages of your website for mobile-optimization (for example, the home and contact pages). It’s understood that Google’s bots scan page-by-page and rank accordingly, so by at least having a mobile-optimized homepage you can mitigate any penalty imposed for not having your entire website mobile-ready. Even so, it’s a stopgap solution for the current best practice: a Responsive Web Design (RWD) redesign.
Do I need an app?
Without going into too much detail in this post, Google’s search changes also optimize search results for content in mobile Apps on Android devices and may help sites promote content via associated mobile apps. While we’ve built plenty of mobile Apps for iOS (iPhone/iPad) and Android, we recommend focusing your efforts on a Responsive Web Design website first, and considering an App secondarily, unless your App has particular utility or functionality. Either way, our team of experts can help and we’re happy to chat with you about this further to discuss the many factors in deciding whether your firm needs an App.
What should I do next?
If the quick tests above are of any concern, then the best solution is to consider a fully responsive website redesign. A Responsive Website is one that adapts to a variety of screen resolutions, and optimizes the user experience for desktop, tablet, and mobile users. Nearly all websites we’ve built for the past few years are already responsive, but if yours is older than that, or you’re not already a RubensteinTech client, then we should talk. For some sites, it’s possible to adapt an existing design to a responsive layout with an engineering-focused retrofit. This wouldn’t require a complete visual redesign, and would work off of the existing desktop page designs. In some cases, selected strategic design input might be best.
The most comprehensive option is to take the long view and agree with Google that mobile is here to stay. We would advise collaboration with a design partner to complete a proper site redesign, consider other updates such as high-resolution (retina) display support and touch support, to rebuild your website’s templates in a fully Responsive Web Design fashion. The good news is that your existing website content and back-end CMS system don’t need to change, and you can leverage all of the work you’ve already done in entering, updating, and optimizing your site content for your audience. We completed just such a redesign with design partner Pentagram for The Vilcek Foundation website.
