{"id":103360,"date":"2015-04-09T18:11:00","date_gmt":"2015-04-09T23:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dacgroup.com\/not-ready-for-googles-mobile-update-heres-what-you-can-do-2\/"},"modified":"2024-12-19T16:41:48","modified_gmt":"2024-12-19T21:41:48","slug":"not-ready-for-googles-mobile-update-heres-what-you-can-do-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dacgroup.com\/en-gb\/insights\/blog\/local-search\/not-ready-for-googles-mobile-update-heres-what-you-can-do-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Not ready for Google\u2019s mobile update? Here\u2019s what you can do"},"content":{"rendered":"

These days, Google isn’t really trying to hide that fact that they’re\u00a0pretty frustrated with the pace of mobile-friendly content<\/a> development across the Internet. That’s why it wasn’t terribly surprising when the search giant took the unprecedented step of telling websites to get mobile friendly or else<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As you’ve probably heard by now, on April 21st Google\u00a0will roll out an algorithm update to expand its “use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal.” While that statement may be\u00a0characteristically vague, it’s clear that web content that is not optimised for mobile devices will suffer in the organic search results once this update rolls later this month. Unlike a lot of Google’s updates, this one will essentially touch every site on the web and affect roughly half of all searches. Essentially, that makes this update bigger than Panda, Penguin and all the rest<\/a>. So what if you’re not ready? After all, Google did give site owners less than two months’ notice (setting aside the myriad of other not-so-subtle hints over the years). That’s not exactly ample time to devise a comprehensive mobile content strategy. So, if you find yourself behind the eight ball, here are some things you can do in the short term to give your content a fighting chance in Google’s new mobile world.<\/p>\n

Optimise to\u00a0the 80\/20 Split<\/h2>\n

While details on the mobile update are still pretty vague, one thing we know is that\u00a0 mobile friendliness will be\u00a0evaluated at a page level rather than a site level<\/a>. That means that individual pages of content could still do well with a mobile-friendly experience, even if your whole site is not ready. In many cases, a relatively small number of pages account for the bulk of organic traffic. If you can find that 80\/20 split, the task of getting your content ready for the mobile update suddenly looks a lot more manageable. Here’s a graph of actual client data:<\/p>\n

\"Mobile<\/p>\n

This graph represents all of the organic landing pages for a client over a 90-day period. The pretty colors are the top ten individual pages, and the\u00a0\u00a0gray area represents the rest. There are thousands of pages in all, and, as you can see, just 10 pages account for more than 60% of the total traffic. The top two account for half of the traffic. If those two pages happen to use the same template, you could cover\u00a0half of your organic search traffic by upgrading a single page template to responsive design. As we all know, Google has been pretty clear that the concept of responsive design is the preferred mobile-friendly method for Search Engine Optimisation<\/a>. Now, everyone knows that there is a ton of value in that long tail of content. That needs to be addressed over time (and the sooner the better), but getting at a solution for the content that handles the majority of your organic traffic is a logical place to start with such a limited time frame.<\/p>\n

Get\u00a0Your Local Data In Order<\/h2>\n

If local search is important to your business, then you can bet that mobile is critical as well. If your local web content won’t be mobile-ready in time for the update, you may need to look elsewhere in the search engine results pages\u00a0to get some traction. If local web content that’s ranking today gets dinged for not being mobile-friendly, it stands to reason that local results through the Google Maps channel will become even more important. Making sure your data is accurate, complete and optimised there and throughout the local search ecosystem will give your maps listings a fighting chance. On the smaller screen, these listings often get top billing for localised searches. That can make it the most valuable spot on the page in many cases. Reports are also saying that the lack of a mobile site will not impact the ranking of these listings<\/a>, which makes that channel a nice short-term workaround. Getting your act together with respect to your local business listings<\/a> makes a lot of sense in the face of this update, but it’s also a foundational piece of any\u00a0comprehensive digital marketing strategy.<\/p>\n

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