If your website isn’t optimised for mobile devices, there’s a good chance your Google search rankings when someone searches from a smart phone will have taken a hit over the past 30 days. This is the result of Google’s latest algorithm change, which looks to give better results to smart phone users by ranking those without a mobile version lower than those that are mobile friendly.

With 35 – 50% of all small business website traffic now coming from mobile devices the impact on your business could be massive. So one month on, we answer some of the questions we’ve been getting.

So what’s happened?

On 21 April 2015 Google began rolling out their new mobile algorithm, which looked to rank those with a mobile friendly website higher than those without when someone searches from their smart phone.

What exactly is a mobile friendly website?

We speak with many people who believe their site is mobile friendly when it is unfortunately not. All websites will appear on a smart phone, however, as a rule of thumb, if the full width of your website page doesn’t fit onto your screen, or you find that you’re having to zoom in to see things because they’re too small to be legible, your site is not mobile friendly.

If you’re in doubt you can use Google’s testing tool here:

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/

How many people actually search from mobile?

The average across all industries is around 35% of site traffic, although we have seen some sites when this figure exceeds 50%.

When you think that half of your potential customers are having a negative experience of your website, it’s plausible to think you may be missing out on large amounts of potential business.

Does this impact all search results?

It’s important to highlight that this change only impacts on those searching Google from their smart phone. Desktop results will remain unchanged as a result of this new algorithm update.

Is it just my home page?

Google’s algorithm will be looking at all of your pages and not just the home page. If you do a lot of blogging and frequently add new content to your site this will be particularly important for you as these pages will be giving you a good level of visibility and ranking across Google.

You’ll want to maintain this visibility on smart phones.

Have we seen the full impact of this change?

Although the algorithm is now 30 days old, Google do take their time so it’s likely the full force of this change will only be realised over the coming months.

However, some sites have already seen significant changes to their rankings as a result of not having a mobile friendly website.

If I get a mobile friendly site, how long will it take to gain its rankings back?

Sites that make changes to improve mobile friendliness should see Google pick up on the changes within days. That said, it will take time for Google’s Web crawlers to index everything.

What should you be doing?

We recommend that if you don’t currently have a mobile friendly website you should seriously consider getting one in the near future. This isn’t because we build websites, but because you could be missing out on potential business each and every day you don’t have one.

 If you’d like to chat through your options, or discuss how this could impact your business please feel free to give us a no-obligation call.

Please do watch your rankings over the next couple weeks and months!