The long talked about Google Mobile update launches tomorrow - are you ready?

Bigger impact than Penguin and Panda combined

Google's Matt Cutts has said that this update will have a bigger impact than Penguin and Panda combined, but what is the new update all about?

Unlike previous updates that penalised sites for thin content and spammy inbound links, the mobile update is more about your website's usabillity. Namely; is the website optimised for mobile devices.

Mobile/tablet traffic accounts for 70% of all visitors

Considering mobile/tablet traffic now accounts for around 70% of all visitors on most websites, it's really a surprise that it's taken this long for Google to force the market to react. For a while now you may have noticed that some search results in Google on a mobile device have the badge of honour 'mobile friendly' tag at the beginnning of their description. Presumably this will disappear tomorrow, and instead the results you find will all be mobile freindly as Google seeks to give searchers the most relevant content, based not just on the term searched, but also the device used to search it.

What does this mean for you?

So what does this mean for you? Well, if your site is not responsive, you can expect a drop in national/international traffic sarching for products and services in your particular vertical. There are rumours that local search will not be effected, so business relying on local listings shouldn't panic too much - but I would be incredibly surprised if local listings weren't modified in the next 12 months as well.

If your site is responsive, and many of your competitors sites are not, then you can expect an increase in mobile traffic as of tomorrow.

If you would like to discuss making your site responsive and improve your Google prominence, get in touch.