@Google wants smartphone-friendly Websites - Pricier Sponsored Search Results Prices for Small Business's Shopaholics

Google is now making it a rule that your website be Mobile-friendly.

As of Tuesday April 21^st 2015, Google is updating the ranking of websites that are displayed in the Android Browser as well as the Google Chrome Browser to favour smartphone-screen friendly websites as noted in the article “Google search has a newfound love for mobile-friendly sites”, published April 21, 2015 by Lance Whitney, CNET News and “Google starts boosting 'mobile-friendly' sites in smartphone search results”, published April 21, 2015 By Chris Welch, The Verge.

These changes had been announced as far back as February 2015 as noted in the Google Webmaster Central Blog post article entitled “Rolling out the mobile-friendly update”, published Tuesday, April 21, 2015, Google Webmaster Central Blog.

From now on, webpages in websites that have been formatted for Smartphone screens will be more likely to appear in the top ten (10) results for a search using a particular web term. This latest change to their Google Search Engine algorithm affects only search rankings on mobile devices in all languages globally.

Good to note that even if a website is not mobile friendly, once webpages that are formatted for Smartphone screens appear to be relevant to a search query entered into the Google Search Engine, the overall web-friendliness perception of the website will increase and so too will the search ranking.

This latest change affects only searches done on smartphones and not tablets or desktop computers. However, it has far reaching implications for website designers and developers who may see traffic to their websites drop if they are not smartphone-friendly and do not have relevant content that matches Google Search queries.

Google Search forcing Website Developer to make smartphone-friendly Websites – Small Businesses to benefit

Google is seeking to make surfing the web in your smaller screen device that much easier.

Basically, that means webpages that are formatted to fit the Smartphone screen, smaller font and size-appropriate images. To this end, they've included a Mobile Friendly Test site where you can enter your URL (Universal Resource Locator) for your website and see how smartphone Browser friendly your website or blog may be.

I tested all of my blogs, i.e. My Thoughts on Technology and Jamaica, MICO Wars: The Teacher Force Awakens as well as Geezam, a blog that I'm the Associate Editor and they all passed with flying colours. It was very easy for me to make adjustment to my personal blogs My Thoughts on Technology and Jamaica and MICO Wars: The Teacher Force Awakens.

This change by Google is certain to benefit small business owners in the US of A who makes a lot of sales via their e-commerce websites as noted in the article entitled “Google Mobile Friendly Algorithm Gives Small Businesses The Advantage”, published APR 25, 2015 by John Rampton, Forbes Magazine  who are nimble and can spend the time to make this necessary change to get more mobile customer.

It however spells bad news for Government and Fortune 500 companies many of who merely have a website to provide online support for their company's products, being as they hardly do much business via their websites as noted in the article “Google’s “Mobile-Friendly” Update Could Impact Over 40% Of Fortune 500 Websites”, published Apr 21, 2015 by Sarah Perez, TechCrunch. 

A study of 100 top mobile properties by Branding Brand returned the following results as it relates to traffic from smartphone users:

1.      27% from Direct

2.      16% from email

3.      14% from Referral i.e. Facebook and Twitter postings

4.      43% from Google Search results

The results are as displayed below in this graph.

This looks a lot like what my personal blogs My Thoughts on Technology and Jamaica and MICO Wars: The Teacher Force Awakens are experiencing in terms of traffic. However, Government and Fortune 500 companies mainly use their websites for support, so this “MobileGeddon” as many are calling it may not affect them enough to change anything about their websites smartphone-friendliness.

This is really more of a wake-up call and opportunity for small-businesses operators. 

Google Shopping Traffic to benefit from Google Search Changes - boosting Smartphone Shopaholics visit against Rival Amazon

Google Search Engine changes may also have to do with drumming up e-commerce, especially for their own online e-commerce portal, Google Shopping as explained in my blog article entitled “Google Shopping Buy Button – How Project Wing 30-minute Delivery for Google Plus on Merchant Pages might compete against Amazon's Online Shopping”.

During the Christmas of 2014, nearly 60% of customers for Amazon, a Google competitor in the e-commerce field, shopped via a Mobile device as noted in the article “Amazon draws 10 million new Prime members over holidays”, published Friday Dec 26, 2014 BY KSHITIZ GOLIYA, Reuters.

Most likely that driver was the Amazon Fire Tablet, which Amazon had produced expressly for Shopaholics and has been known since 2012 by analyst IDC to be a nexus for shoppers to access their online web portal as I'd explained in my Geezam blog article entitled “Amazon is Legally Blonde as the Kindle Fire HD Upgrade is CEO Bezos’s Confessions of an Online Shopaholic”.

Google's Sponsored Search Results in Google Search - Leveling the Prices with Desktop as Mobile Search increases

Then there's the plain purpose of boosting the price of Sponsored Search Results appearing on Google Search as explained in the article “Google Gives Boost to Mobile-Friendly Sites”, published April 21, 2015 by ROLFE WINKLER, Wall Street Journal. 

Advertising represents 90% of Google’s US$66 billion in revenue in 2014, but advertisers typically pay less for smartphone advertising. If Google could get website designers and Developers to make their websites Smartphone compatible i.e. fit the screen and bigger font, they’d boost traffic from Smartphone users using their Google Android and Google Chrome browsers to make Google Searches.

This would translate to an increase in developers registering to pay for their website to be advertised in the top 10 first searches for a particular search terms. That demand would allow Google to gradually raise the prices for mobile ads and eventually bring them on par with Desktop and Tablet ads. 

So it’s really to your benefit to have your website or blog smartphone–friendly.

Here's the Link:

Google Developer's Mobile Friendly Test