Google is changing the way you mobile.

If you have ever searched for a website using your phone, you know how frustrating it can be to land on a page that is so small you can’t click anything without zooming and scrolling to find what you need. There is good news for Google users – beginning April 21^st, they are improving the search experience, reordering search results using an algorithm based on how mobile-friendly the website is.

While this makes sense from the user’s point of view, it could be costly from an e-commerce perspective, resulting in losses of mobile traffic and revenue. How much of an impact will this change have? Keep in mind the change will only affect results on mobile phones and tablets.

The size of the impact on e-commerce has yet to be determined. There are other variables that can influence search results. Many results are personalized in some way, and if users search using a specific brand name the website may show up whether it is mobile-friendly or not.

Currently, when users perform a search on their phone, Google marks which sites are mobile-friendly.

Here is an example of a website that is mobile friendly:

Here is an example of a website that is NOT mobile friendly:

Whether or not you or your marketing firm thinks your website is mobile-friendly is irrelevant. Google determines this algorithmically; it has 100% control over where your site is ranked. Using Google’s mobile-friendly testing tool, I analyzed 6pm.com to see WHY it isn’t mobile friendly. Here is what I found:

If your website doesn’t pass the test, you have a few options:

1) Talk to your website developer. They may be able to upgrade your existing website to meet the requirements.

2) If your website is too outdated, it may be time for a complete redesign.

3) Or you could do nothing, assuming the risk of losing all mobile traffic and opportunities for revenue.

Think of this as an opportunity.

In the film Forrest Gump, Forrest fulfills a promise to his friend Bubba to run his shrimping business. At first, the market was saturated with gobs of shrimp boats, and Forrest wasn’t catching anything. Then, a hurricane came through and took out the rest of the competition. All of sudden, he was catching more shrimp than EVER before.

So what? Not many of your sales come from mobile searches. Forget all of that. This doesn’t give any indication of what could happen if your competitors went away or the size of your mobile search opportunity.

If you aren’t sure where to start with all of this, I know a great group of ladies that can help. Reach out to us at worxgraphicdesign.com. We would love to chat with you.