What is Mobilegeddon?
Mobilegeddon is an impressive change that Google is making with their search engine and ranking criteria. With the rise of smartphones and tablets in recent years, many users have found themselves using their mobile devices to replace various functions usually reserved for desktops, one notable example being internet searches. Google searches from mobile devices have been steadily rising and have even overtaken desktop searches as the go-to method for finding relevant information quickly.
Google decided to accommodate for their growing mobile user base. In April of 2015, the company announced a change to their search algorithm. Mobile-friendliness (How well a site’s content had been optimized for the screen restrictions of mobile devices) would now be a larger factor in determining where a page ranked on Google’s search results.
If a site’s content had been optimized for mobile devices, it would appear closer to the top of the page resulting in greater traffic and by extension, additional business. This impending update was dubbed “Mobilegeddon” as Webmasters and SEO professionals began to worry about how their site traffic would be affected.
A year later, Google has decided to unleash upon the world a “Mobilegeddon 2.0”, an initiative to reemphasize the importance of mobile optimization by increasing the strength of its signal in Google’s ranking algorithm. Stragglers that have still yet to optimize their site will find an even bigger hit to their place on Google’s search. How do you avoid being undermined by Google’s new update? How does Google even measure mobile-friendliness? Google uses a variety of factors to determine whether a site is optimized for mobile devices. In order to have a mobile-friendly design, a site must fit the following criteria. –
- Large, readable font
- Spacing between text/buttons
- No content larger than the screen
- Avoidance of platforms unsupported by Mobile (i.e. Flash)
- Quick load time on mobile devicesTo test your site’s load time on mobile devices, check out the Google Insight Tool or if you want to check how mobile-friendly your site’s design is, test it out on Google’s . Mobile-Friendly Test
Basically, the better your site performs when viewed on a mobile device, the higher it will be placed in Google’s ranking system.
If your site doesn’t fit these criteria, it may be time to upgrade your layout, but don’t worry! Though it may seem intimidating to completely overhaul your site in order to comply with Google’s new update, we are here to help! Cal Coast Web Design offers a host of responsive web design practices and features that can help you adapt to this incoming change. What can we do to help you take action?
- Update your website themes and templates to be mobile friendly and responsive,
- Make sure your website works in different browsers and on different devices,
- Check and fix compatibility issues between different viewers,
- Optimization for higher Google rankings, social media optimization, and more!
Email us at info@calcoastwebdesign.com or call (949) 229-5932 to see what we can do for your Orange County business website. We want to see you on the front page just as much as you do! Contact Cal Coast Web Design today about getting ready for the change with updated internet marketing. For information on the last Mobilegeddon Update, check out our previous post on the issue here.
