Mythbusting Google’s “Mobilegeddon"

Back in December, we published an article called “Another Google Game-Changer: How Going Mobile Friendly Will Boost Your Search Visibility” that addressed the new “mobile friendly” designation that the search engine was adding to websites that had been optimized for mobile devices.

At the time, Google said that they saw “these labels as a first step in helping mobile users to have a better mobile web experience.” They went on to say, “we are also experimenting with using the mobile-friendly criteria as a ranking signal.” Many people speculated that it would only be a matter of time before Google started rewarding sites that were mobile friendly, and thereby penalizing those that were not. That day has come.

In a recent announcement, Google clarified their intentions for this mobile friendly label, stating that “starting April 21, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results.”

If your site is not mobile friendly, Google has been quite clear in the fact that that site will no longer be given the same consideration that sites that are responsive and mobile friendly will be given. If you haven’t yet made multi-device support a priority on your website, now is the time to do so!

In prestigious company

Creating mobile friendly websites that are built with a responsive approach is not a new idea. The article that introduced this term to the industry was published in 2010 and it has been a best practice for years with Google recommending it as their preferred solution for multi-device support for quite some time. Still, even though responsive web design has been an important part of the Web industry for a while, there are many companies that have not yet implemented these best practices on their own site. If you are one of the companies that has thus far eschewed this approach to multi-device support, rest assured that you are in prestigious company.

A recent article by TechCrunch found that 44% of websites for Fortune 500 companies failed when using the Google PageSpeed Insights API. This tool shows if a site is, indeed, mobile friendly. The findings of this report show that the failure to go responsive is not always due to financial reasons. The prestigious companies on the Fortune 500 list can certainly afford to redesign their websites to add a mobile-friendly experience. So why haven’t they done so then? Oftentimes, when a company fails to go responsive and create a site with an optimized experience for all screens and devices, it is because they do not fully understand the importance or benefits of doing so.

Mobile expectations

Google’s changes to their algorithm show that they expect more from websites and the experience they deliver to mobile devices. This makes sense, because web users as a whole have begun to expect more from mobile websites.

A short time ago, Google conducted a survey of website users and their opinions on the mobile web experience. They found that “72 percent of mobile users say it’s important to them that websites are mobile-friendly, yet 96 percent have visited a site that doesn’t work well on their device.”

The survey, and resulting report, went on to state that “users are five times more likely to abandon the task they are trying to complete if the site isn’t optimized for mobile use, with 79 percent saying they will go back to search and try to find another site to meet their needs.”

As these numbers show, the expectations for mobile websites are rising and the patience to deal with non-mobile friendly sites is greatly diminishing. Because of this, the “do nothing” approach to multi-device support is simply no longer an option.

The “do nothing” approach

The “do nothing” approach to mobile web support is pretty easy to accomplish, because, as the name suggests, you do nothing to your website and allow a layout that was intended for large screen, desktop monitors to display on all devices and screen sizes – mobile included. Before the rise in popularity of mobile devices, this is how all websites were built. As such, when people first began using those mobile devices to access websites, they accepted the fact that sites were difficult to use on those devices. They had to “pinch and zoom” to read content or tap links that were meant to be clicked with a mouse, not touched with a finger. Once responsive design took hold, however, and as more and more sites integrated this approach and improved their mobile experience, expectations from customers were raised.

In short order, the “do nothing” approach went from an unfortunate, yet acceptable, solution to a sign that your site was behind the times. Now, with Google’s changes to their search algorithm and their clear stance that the “do nothing” approach is no longer acceptable, this approach will not only show you are behind, it will also hurt your site’s overall SEO. If you have not yet made your site mobile friendly, and you are not planning to do so now, expect that your site will fall further and further behind the times and lower and lower in Google’s search engine rankings.

The case for mobile-friendly

Google’s algorithm changes are the final piece that many companies may have needed to finally take the steps to make their site mobile friendly – but maintaining quality rankings is not the only reason to use this approach. There are a number of benefits to going responsive on your website, including:

Customer service – since customers expect a website that works well on all devices, from desktops to tablets to phones and beyond, by delivering a quality experience on all these devices, you present a better overall customer service experience

Business development / customer retention – as the Google report shows, customers who visit a site on a mobile device and find it not optimized for that device are likely to leave the site and seek out an alternative for the products or services the need. This is lost business for you! A site that works well on all devices ensures that the traffic you get is the traffic you keep!

Content consistency – with a responsive website, you have 1 website to maintain and manage, as opposed to separate sites for mobile versus desktop users. That one site will dynamically reflow its layout based on a user’s screen size. This means that while the look of the site may adjust for different users, the content will remain the same, ensuring that the right message is always delivered regardless of the device being used to access the website

Take the leap.

Expect search engine rankings to change dramatically after April 21st as Google begins using mobile friendless as ranking criteria. If you are not ready for this change, speak to your web or marketing team immediately and get the ball rolling on plans that will bring mobile support to your website and have your business ready for the increasing mobile-centric future of the Web.

Remarketing: A Second Chance at Love

Consider this bit of classic situation comedy:

Guy meets girl at a laundromat.

Girl gives guy her number.

Guy accidentally washes the receipt she wrote it on.

All hope of love is lost.

The poor schlep. If only he had a second chance, right?

Fortunately for him, we’re all familiar enough with TV tropes to know that their story doesn’t end there. Fate will intercede to bring them together again, and all will be well.

Fortunately for you, the story of you and your prospective customers can have a similar happy ending.

In many ways, marketing is like dating. There’s an initial introduction, followed by a period of wooing to secure their digits (or email address or mailing address or Facebook “like,” as the case may be). Every step – and every hour and every dollar spent – along the way in nurturing that relationship is designed to keep things moving through the proverbial funnel to greater levels of commitment until you arrive at a proposal (call to action) and the resulting commitment (conversion).

But what if, in spite of your best efforts to get your customer to the alter (the checkout or contact form), they lose interest, forget you exist (ouch!) or, worst of all, go AWOL before clicking “submit”? Like the guy in the laundromat, you need a second chance.

Enter remarketing – the fairy godmother of sales.

Reunited and it feels so good

As we’ve covered previously, there are plenty of things you can do both to optimize your chances of converting a new customer and to minimize the odds that a shopper will walk away from their cart mid-session.

Inevitably though, despite your best efforts, some prospective buyers will simply fall through the cracks. They might decide they need more time to consider their purchase, or they might be pulled away from the computer by one of the many distractions of daily life. Whatever the reason, unlike our friend in the laundromat, you don’t have to rely on fate to reunite you. You have more than a damp blank receipt in your pocket; you have the ability to deploy remarketing.

In principle, remarketing is not rocket science. It’s exactly what it sounds like: reaching out once again to someone who has already responded to earlier marketing efforts and engaged with your brand on some level. Essentially, it’s preaching to the converted – or nearly converted – if you will.

More specifically, remarketing uses information collected about a visitor’s activity on your site (e.g., viewing a product page, adding a product to their shopping cart, etc.) to put your brand and your products in front of them again via a highly targeted follow-up message that’s customized based upon parameters relating to the actions they took while on your site.

Typically, this follow-up is executed in one of two ways: either by pushing ads for your products out to other sites they visit as they continue browsing or by sending an email message directly to them if their contact information is available to you. These ads and emails typically feature tailored messages and images designed specifically to re-engage the prospect in the action they previously abandoned based on information collected about their browsing activity.

The nitty gritty

How on earth does this work?

What’s happening behind the scenes is that a code snippet provided by your analytics resource of choice (e.g., Google AdWords) is embedded into the source code of strategically selected pages of your site.

This code then places a cookie into the browsers of those who visit such a page on your site, assigning specific information about their visit. These cookied visitors are skimmed off into a new “audience” within your analytics and sent customized ads over advertising networks known as Demand Side Platforms (DSPs). Google AdWords is the probably the best known DSP, but there are a host of others out there, many of which claim to specialize in remarketing. Alternately, recipients of remarketing may instead receive automated, custom-tailored emails if that visitor has previously provided their contact information to you.

The proof is in the ebelskiver

Let’s consider an example that’s close to home (pun intended). My wife recently visited the Williams-Sonoma website in search of a special pan required to make her latest obsession: tiny filled pancakes known as ebelskivers.

She located the tart-maker on the site but did not select the option to “Add to Basket.” Within a few hours, she received the following email (because she had registered to receive updates from the company previously, they already had her email address on file):

The “Buy Now” button embedded within this message took her directly back to the page for the product, just one convenient click away from purchase.

“Hello, Clarice.”

One word of caution: as with any marketing strategy, you must always implement this tactic in ways that show respect for your customers and reinforce – rather than undermine – the trust they have in your company and your brand.

Overly eager DSPs will promise to make it rain, but there’s a fine line between a gentle reminder and creepy stalking – or “cookie bombing”.

A retargeted ad that reminds a visitor that they have items remaining in their shopping cart is a courteous customer service gesture. Bombarding them with the same ad for days or weeks will come off as a much more self-serving ploy that’s likely to cost you not only the potential sale that’s currently on the table but any future business from that customer as well.