Google’s Mobile Algorithm Update Is Here!
Google Announces New Mobile Algorithm To Be Released TODAY!
Your website needs to be mobile friendly. Here’s why:
On February 26, Google announced that its upcoming algorithm will weigh the mobile-friendliness of websites. Even if your website looks decent when you view it on your phone, it may not be optimized according to Google’s specific standards. With 80% of the search engine market share owned by Google, and 90% of Google traffic being mobile, no website can afford to ignore the importance the new mobile-friendly Google algorithm. Take this quick quiz and utilize the free resources below to learn how this mobile optimization update will affect your website. 
Staying Power
We live in a world where everyone comparison shops, especially on the web. By keeping mobile users on only your site, you essentially cut out the competition. On the other hand, if your site isn’t mobile-friendly, you can bet they will be more likely to look elsewhere for what they need. By reducing the possibility of users jumping to competitor websites, you’ll build more loyalty to your own brand.
Increase Traffic
With advances to technology coming at an unprecedented pace, the speed of devices and digital processes is expected to keep up. Fast is the new slow, and users are steadily developing intolerance for speeds that used to be acceptable. Even a second or two of loading time can be the difference between a conversion and a lost customer, so ensuring that your website is mobile-friendly will make for quicker, easier navigation and a higher chance of converting your mobile users.
Increase Conversions
You should be focused on converting your customers, not worrying if they’ll be able to figure out the checkout experience. It’s silly and sad to think of a customer ready to give you business, but unable to complete a purchase simply because the site was difficult to use on a mobile device. Creating a mobile-friendly experience for your users will prevent lost transactions due to user frustration.
Mobile Phones Comparison Image
Your website needs to be mobile-friendly. Here’s why:
Notice how much easier it would be for a mobile user to navigate the mobile-friendly website in the image below. If you don’t think the examples below are very different, consider how enjoyable it would be to scroll horizontally, zoom in and out trying to view content not formatted properly for your phone, or accidentally click on the wrong buttons because the site isn’t optimized for mobile.
Additional Tools For Mobile Testing:
Here are some additional tools that can help you determine if your website is mobile optimized. 
Open up your website in the Chrome browser. Use your mouse to right-click on the page and select “Inspect Element” there in your right-click menu. From here, some of your web page code should populate with a black par across the top. On the left of that bar, next to the search icon, you’ll find a mobile phone icon. Click here to view your site as a mobile device would view it. Use the Devices tab at the top of this page to select varying models. Click the mobile phone icon again to exit.
Additionally, you can login to your Google Webmaster Tools account specific to your website. On the left hand side, under “Crawl” and click on “Fetch as Google.” Here, next to the URL you input, you can select various mobile versions and click “Fetch and Render.” After a few minutes, Google will return their view of your website as a mobile-friendly device.
It’s interesting to me that it takes this huge announcement to encourage some businesses to make their sites mobile friendly. The data in this article is not new–smart business owners should have had mobile-friendly/optimized sites for ages.
Seriously though. I get mobile sites all the time where I’m like, “wow, they haven’t even tried to optimize this for mobile”, and I always immediately leave those sites. Often times, it’s sites I thought I might purchase from too.
Great post Kate. I wonder when the world will move completely away from desktop searches and move to mobile. What is after mobile phones? watches?
Holy cow! I am blown away that Google has 90% of the mobile market. That is astounding. I guess it isn’t really surprising, though. Google: one search engine to rule them all…my precious!
I know! I found it kind of amazing. I remember a day when Google was an invite-only email system at best!
It’s kinda funny that this boostability page does not appear to be mobile friendly…
Thanks for your feedback, Joe. I just ran this page through Google’s mobile friendly test and it appears to be mobile friendly: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.www.boostability.com%2Fgoogles-mobile-algorithm-update-is-here%2F%23comment-1983189387
What kind of mobile device were you looking at?
The good news is that our website’s across the board are all currently under construction for a fantastic redesign. Just you wait!
Thanks for sharing some primary data, James! The first thing is that I think it may just take some time to see movement. Secondly, and more importantly, I believe you’ll see very positive results from having a mobile friendly result whether Google explicitly does much to their algorithms or not. Just by having a better mobile site, you’ll see more return traffic, page views, and onsite actions, which will help your search results in the long run anyway. There’s so many benefits to having a mobile friendly site, so even without the Google update, it something everyone should do anyway.
Thanks Jamison. I agree with you that the benefits are high to having done the mobile update. We see about 25% of our traffic from mobile devices, enough to make the change worthwhile. I believe that the commercial real estate industry as a whole is in the 25% – 35% range of mobile searchers.
My understanding of the update is that it will impact primarily the mobile search results, of which I am still seeing competitor’s mobile unfriendly sites ranking high.
You would also think that mobile friendly sites would see a positive uptick in the desktop results as well. These are sites that are current and up to date, hence will probably provide better results for searchers. So far nothing. I guess I just need to be patient…
You’re absolutely right that these updates separate what is ultimately a separate, mobile specific algorithm. With more and more people searching on mobile, especially for local business, I anticipate that the mobile search algorithm will become the standard.
Every website should be mobile friendly! it doesn’t matter if you don’t get as much traffic from mobile devises but we should always be up to day for Google’s updates
This update is huge! It has been interesting to see how these updates from Google affect so many lives and industries. This update alone will influence mobile users, all online businesses, programmers/developers, online marketers, etc. My husband has an IT consulting company, and they have already seen a boost in business with people hiring them to update their mobile websites. The power Google has over our world is incredible!
I think the first (and easiest) thing you could look in Google Analytics is audience > Mobile > Overview. See if the sessions have changed much before the update compared to currently. An increase or decrease could indicate a bump or decline in your SERP rankings.
Super awesome that you were so quick to answer this question!