Episode #4: Is Google's April 21 Algorithm Update "MobileGeddon"?

He Said She Said - An Inbound Sales & Marketing Podcast

Welcome back to another episode of Quintain Marketing's inbound marketing and sales podcast, He Said, She Said! This week's episode is all about Google's April 21 algorithm update. Some have called it "MobileGeddon" and others have said it will be the "SEOpocalypse." Bottom line - if your website isn't mobile friendly, expect to see a BIG drop in traffic starting later this month.

Listen to this week's episode to learn:

• How to know if your website will be impacted when Google rolls out this change on April 21, 2015
• What you can do to make sure your search ranking doesn't suffer
• How often you should be updating your website and what you should be budgeting for it

This is going to be a BIG change for anyone using a mobile device to search Google and it will have an even BIGGER impact on companies that don't have mobile-optimized websites, so make sure you listen to know how you'll be affected.

Last fall Google rolled out a new system for search results that includes a label for sites that are mobile friendly. This was part of an ongoing effort to drive more traffic to these sites and to improve the user experience for mobile searchers. Now, Google is updating its algorithm once again and on April 21, it will put in place changes to make mobile searches even more friendly (see the official Google announcement here). Search Engine Watch is calling it “MobileGeddon” and Search Engine Land is calling it "SEO-Pocalypse".

Who will the upcoming change impact?

• Sites that are not mobile friendly
• Landing pages/subdomains that are not mobile friendly

How to know if your website will be impacted? There are a few easy things to watch out for:

• Do you use software that is not common on mobile devices, like Flash?
• Do viewers using a mobile device need to zoom to read the text on your site?
• Do users have to scroll horizontally or zoom to see information?
• When viewed through a mobile device, are links on your site so close together that they are difficult to tap?

If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, you most likely have a problem. To be sure, run your website through the Mobile Friendliness Test offered by Google Webmaster Tools.

For those of you who are more technically inclined, here are the details on what Google is going to penalize:

• Blocked JavaScript, CSS and image files
• Unplayable content
• Faulty redirects
• Mobile-only 404 errors
• Irrelevant cross links
• Slow mobile pages

If you're concerned about site speed (and you should be if your website pages take longer than 1 secodn to load), you can check Google Developer’s Page Speed Insights Tool – this will literally tell you where you have problems and what you should fix.

While this may seem sudden and can be a lot to digest, the truth is that a lot of these are things you should be doing anyway to provide your website visitors with a good experience. Gone are the days when you could build a website and walk away. Now, you need to think of your site like you do your mobile phone. It should go through a major updated around every two years, and in between, you should be keeping your content management system (CMS) and any plugins updated as well. Plus, if you want to give your visitors the best experience possible, you should be regularly updating your site's content.

It's a lot - I know - but this is the reality of the world we live in. With more people using their mobile phones and tablets to access information on the internet, having a mobile friendly site is critical. Clearly, Google has recognized this and is taking action.

Consider Google's algorithm upate a good reason to do a little website spring cleaning. And if you're not sure whether your site needs updating, you can always give us a call and we'll review it for you.

I hope you found today's episode helpful and if you liked what you heard, please consider subscribing to He Said, She Said on iTunes or Stitcher (the links are up above!). We'd also love if you would give us a review. The feedback is helpful and we're always looking to hear from you about what topics you'd like us to cover in future episodes. If you have an idea, give us a shout out on Twitter using the hashtag "#hesaidshesaidpocast" and make sure to tag @Quintain.