When Mike Shapiro read that Google was changing its algorithm to favor mobile-friendly sites, he knew it was time to act. Shapiro, a former corporate lawyer, is CEO and publisher of TAPInto.net, a group of neighborhood news sites in New Jersey that he founded in 2008. The five-employee chain, based in New Providence, N.J., has grown into a 37-unit franchise.
“When we launched in 2008, less than 10% of our readers came from mobile,” says Shapiro. “At the end of December that number was 49%. We saw the writing on the wall.” To get ahead of Google’s change, TAPInto.net launched a mobile site in March. “The day it launched our mobile traffic accounted for 51% of our traffic,” says Shapiro. “Two months later, it’s 61%.”
It’s not surprising that Google would give site owners a strong push in this direction, given the vastly superior consumer experience of reading information on a responsive mobile website. It is in small business owners’ best interest to make sure on-the-go customers can use their sites easily. Incredibly, 90% of small business owners do not have a mobile-friendly website, even though the majority of adults (60%) now use their mobile phones or tablets, rather than desktops, to do online research before making a purchase, according to the Local Search Association.
Some small business owners haven’t acted as quickly as Shapiro, and may be worried that their sites will now sink to the bottom of an ocean of information, never to be found again by their customers.
So what can you do if you have fallen behind the change? The good news is that you can catch up, and you will be rewarded when you make these adjustments.
Put your site to the test. Visit your site from a mobile device to see what the experience is like for your customers. To make sure it also meets Google’s standards, take Google’s Mobile Friendly Test. The test is simple – paste your website’s URL into the form and Google will show you how it sees your page and why it passed or failed. Some website providers already optimize clients’ sites for mobile, so it may pass with flying colors. But, if it does fail, now is the time to find a solution.
Don’t panic. If your site flunks the test you have an opportunity to evaluate how you manage your web presence, which will benefit your business in the long run. The world of website development looks a lot different today than it did several years ago. You have options, and taking the right steps now will not only help you survive Google’s latest change, but also respond quickly in the future. Here are some of the options and how to figure out what’s best for your business.
- Update your existing website. If your site didn’t pass, Google’s test will help you understand why. For instance, you might see “Links too close together” if they are not far enough apart for the correct one to be easily tapped. If you know the software your website was built with or still work closely with your original web developer to keep your page current, it’s likely that you can make your site mobile-friendly by following Google’s guidelines.
This option is best for businesses with web-savvy site managers that have access to the source HTML, and the time and expertise to manage the page.
- Build a new website. A website overhaul can seem like an extreme measure to beat Google’s latest change, but failing the mobile test may just be the latest indication that your website needs a makeover. If you don’t have access to the original information about how the website was built or haven’t kept it updated, this may be the best option for you. Google and other search engines will continue to evolve, and you will fall farther behind if you don’t find a way to maintain your site.
Depending on your budget, interest and skills, you can determine if it is best for you to build a website independently or use a service.
When to build a website on your own: If you have the skills and time to build a website or the budget to hire a professional web developer, you can design a custom web presence that reflects your business. This is a significant investment, both in terms of upfront cost and ongoing management, but you have total control.
When to use a website building service: If you don’t have the budget or resources to create and maintain an up-to-date web presence, there are affordable web services that can help you. Again, you have options. Your choices range from DIY services that make it easier to create a site but require you to manage content and SEO, to online marketing platforms that offer pre-built web templates that are continuously monitored and optimized by a team of experts.
Stay ahead of the curve. No matter how you move forward with updating your site, you need to stay informed about changes like these in the future.Google announced that this recent change was coming in February, but many small business owners are only learning about it now.
To avoid getting taken by surprise in the future, keep an eye on MozCast and Search Engine Land. SerpMetrics publishes a graph that shows volatility taking place in top search engine rankings. If there’s a sharp spike, pay attention to how your own rankings are doing. Consistently monitoring your website traffic is another good way to stay informed – if there is a major change, you should do some research and find out if there was an update that is affecting your ranking. As the frenzy around “Mobilegeddon” has shown, this is one area where you can’t be too prepared.
As for Shapiro, he’s now moving onto part two of his plan to make his site mobile-friendly. He’s working on search engine optimization (SEO) for common search terms used to find the site, such as “New Providence NJ news.” “Even though we haven’t done the SEO yet, we have ranked a little bit higher since Google’s algorithm change,” says Shapiro.
