Starting April 21, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results. Consequently, users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices. ~Google Webmaster Central Blog<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n In Google’s own words – this update is going to have a significant impact<\/em> on search results, which is probably why they saw fit to announce it ahead of time, which is in rare form for them.<\/p>\n In fact, while the Penguin and Panda are synonymous with death and destruction among webmasters everywhere (I am exaggerating ever-so-slightly here), the mobile friendliness update is poised to easily eclipse their reach by affecting potentially 60% of the sites on the web.<\/p>\n The fact that this change is happening shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone remotely aware of the popularity of smart phones and mobile browsing. While Google has long been recommending mobile friendly versions of websites, they’re finally drawing a line in the sand;<\/p>\n It’s either get mobile friendly or be\u00a0eliminated from mobile search (in other words – no search\u00a0for you!).<\/p>\n So with April 21st almost upon us, time is running out for you to get your site ready. Is it time to panic and look for a tall building to throw yourself off of?<\/p>\n Well, not necessarily, step one is to determine if your site is mobile friendly or not according to Google.<\/p>\n So how can you tell if your website is mobile friendly or not?<\/p>\n Well, if the site was built five years ago or more, chances are it isn’t mobile friendly at all.<\/p>\n However, if you worked with a reputable web designer in the past 3 years, it’s likely they would have recommended either a dedicated mobile website, or a responsive design website.<\/p>\n Responsive design websites can adapt to any screen size, from desktop to tablet to smart phone automatically.<\/p>\n Still not sure if your site is mobile-friendly? Enter the Google mobile friendliness test!<\/a><\/p>\n Google has a free test that you can use\u00a0to find out if your website is\u00a0mobile-friendly, no guess work required.<\/p>\n Did your site pass?<\/p>\n If not, don’t panic just yet…first ask yourself the following question:<\/p>\n If your site needs to be mobile optimized, you have a few options.<\/p>\n While many web designers and developers will spout words like “mobilegeddon” and intone that it will be the end of your business as you know it if you don’t buy a new website (namely from them); this update doesn’t have to be doom and gloom.<\/p>\n Don’t get me wrong; having a mobile friendly website is definitely a ‘best practices’ recommendation, and most of us aren’t in the position to pass up any\u00a0additional “free traffic” we can get from Google.<\/p>\n But\u00a0choosing to\u00a0upgrade to a mobile friendly website will also depend on the type of business that you have and whether your website is directly contributing to your earnings already.<\/p>\n After all, a 60% decrease in 0% earnings still equals $0.<\/p>\n If you’ve never been able to measure ROI on visitors to your website, and you don’t sell anything online, you may be among those who can afford to wait before you invest in a new or mobile version of your website.<\/p>\n However, if you know for a fact that you’re getting a sizable chunk\u00a0of organic traffic from Google right now and you’re not mobile friendly – then it’s gut-check time.<\/p>\n You need to ask yourself if your business can handle losing a significant portion of that free Google traffic\u00a0after April 21st.<\/p>\n You’ll also want to look at your competition [N<\/strong>inja\u00a0Tip:<\/strong>\u00a0run the mobile-friendly test on your direct competitors] <\/em>and see if they’re in the position to leapfrog your website.<\/p>\n If your industry is rife with mobile-friendly competition, you’ll need to get your site optimized if you want to stay\u00a0visible in Google’s organic search.<\/p>\n To find out how much of your traffic is mobile, you can check\u00a0Google Analytics, or your email service provider for data.<\/p>\n For instance, in Google Analytics you can check out the percentage of your mobile visitors and what their bounce and conversion rates look like.<\/p>\n Here’s how:<\/p>\n 1) Login to your Google Analytics account. This will tell you all that you need to know in terms of how many mobile visitors you get to your website.<\/p>\n If there is less than 10% of mobile coming to your website, chances are you’re in no huge rush to get a mobile-friendly\u00a0version of your site up and running.<\/p>\n Not even 20% of the traffic to Honeypot Marketing.com is from mobile visitors as you can see below:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [Ninja Tip:<\/strong> For a more accurate picture of the amount of mobile traffic, expand your date range from 1 month to 3 or 6 months. You can also compare 2015 with 2014 and see how much (or how little) mobile traffic has increased to your website versus the previous year.]<\/em><\/p>\n Don’t have web analytics hooked up to your website?<\/p>\n We won’t judge you….but really? You don’t have analytics for your website????<\/p>\n Seriously, another way to get a sense of the ‘mobility of your audience’ (I just made that up) is to check your email service provider’s stats.<\/p>\n Mailchimp, for instance has a report that breaks this down for you. Just click on your list, then click “stats” and scroll down and you can see something like this:<\/p>\nIs Your Site Mobile-Friendly?<\/h2>\n
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Do I Need to Fix My Site Right Now?<\/h3>\n
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How Much Mobile Traffic Does My Website Get?<\/h3>\n
\n2) Click on “Audience”
\n<\/span>3) Click on “Mobile”<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/content.screencast.com\/users\/miker75\/folders\/Honeypot%20Marketing%20Stuff\/media\/280f1672-ce6e-4e35-b722-656c8fd0d3d5\/mobile_traffic_to_honeypotmarketing.png\")
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