Why Your Mobile-Friendly Site Still Lost Search Traffic
It’s April 21st which means Google Mobilegeddon is upon us. Starting today websites that are not mobile-friendly will begin to see a substantial drop in mobile search ranking on Google (some websites have already seen changes in the past weeks). While this move has many crying that Google is trying to screw them, the change is a great one as it is finally pushing many to make the user experience for mobile viewers an acceptable one. Mobile web usage now beats out desktop browsing but even so, many have been very slow to give mobile users a decent experience. This move by Google was just the kick in the ass that many needed to make that change.
You saw the announcement back in February. You worked hard to update your site to be mobile-friendly, or maybe you were ahead of the crowd and already had a mobile-friendly site. With the switch being flipped April 21st, you figured you were all set to make it through without issue. So why is your search traffic still dropping? The answer may not be about your site at all.
Moving Forward Or Standing Still
Just because a site was prepared for the Google mobile-friendly updated doesn’t mean we won’t start seeing big changes in mobile search rankings. While mobile-friendliness hasn’t been a ranking factor until now, there are countless other items that are. When many of your competitors upgraded to make their site mobile-friendly, most didn’t simply change a WordPress template and call it a day. Many took it as an opportunity to take care of some of the other SEO items they’d been neglecting for some time. They improved not just how their site appears to Google on mobile, but how it appears to Google in general.
The changes made in preparation to this update will end up affecting not just if a website gets the mobile thumbs up or down from Google, but also how that site ranks overall. Because of these change, we’re going to see a lot of movement in ranking over the coming weeks as this updated is rolled out as well as with natural ranking changes we see any time a website updates to be more search friendly.
Make Up For Lost Ground
So what do you do to get your lost traffic back? If you simply updated to be mobile-friendly but nothing else, or if you did nothing because your site was already serving up a great experience for mobile viewers, it’s time to make some more changes. Check for site errors or other items that could be hurting you. Are you seeing a drop of rankings outside of mobile search? Changes made to become mobile-friendly could have had negative effects on other ranking aspects unknowingly.
Next, look into why others are now outranking you. See if you missed something they didn’t. Just as the mobile-friendly update encouraged many to make changes they’d been neglecting to do to their sites for some time, this can be an opportunity for you do to the same. Are there SEO modifications you should be taking this opportunity to address? Take care of them now. Climbing back up in the search rankings is never a fun or simple task but it is one that generally pays off with higher overall ranking than before and is well worth the effort.
Re-Rank
Some website changes we make on our own. Sometimes we neglect and ignore them instead. With the introduction of the Mobile-Friendly Update, Google has jump started many to address items they should have taken care of long ago. With lots of changes happening to not just mobile-friendliness but also search friendliness in general, we’re going to see a lot of movement in rankings over the coming weeks and months. By doing everything you can to make sure your site is as search engine friendly as possible, we can do our best to hold or move to higher ground in both mobile and standard search.
