As a small business owner, it’s essential to become aware of how much Google can influence your success. It’s also very important to know that Google is always changing and adapting its algorithms not only to reflect trends in society and technology, but also to improve its services.

However, recently, Google has rolled a series of changes to its SEO algorithm that’s going to greatly affect the way you are ranked as a business when someone surfs the web on a mobile device. So what are these changes that you need to know about and how do they affect your business? Well, the answer depends on your business and your customers, but rest assured that regardless of the niche you’re in, it’s going to dramatically affect your ability to generate revenue.

How Does Google’s Change In Algorithm Affect Your Business?

What are the changes Google made?

According to Google, its latest changes affect the way businesses are ranked when people perform a search on it using a mobile device. So put things in different terms, if your website is mobile friendly, then you’ll certainly be able to rank better than websites which are not yet optimized for mobile users. Even though when it comes to search engine optimization, mobile friendliness has always been important, it wasn’t essential in the way that it would dramatically affect the search results as it does now.

Why is mobile so important?

There are more and more people using mobile devices and their number is growing at an alarming rate every month. In order to keep up with demand, Google needs to adapt in order to ensure these users are getting the most mobile friendly and relevant results. According to various studies, approximately sixty percent of internet traffic is now generated by mobile devices.

As you can see, mobile friendliness is a very important factor that directly influences sales. In a statement released to the press, Google said that this change was made because user experience is just as important as other facets of search engine optimization, including content. While in the past mobile friendliness could be easily ignored, we’re at a point in time where that attitude cannot continue anymore since it prevents businesses from making more money.

What can you do?

If your website is not mobile friendly, then it’s most likely skipped when someone searches for products or services that you may be able to offer them, just because your website doesn’t meet Google’s ranking conditions. If you’re a small business and you want to make your website mobile friendly, but don’t have or don’t want to spend a lot of money on the latest developments in mobile search engine optimization, then you don’t have to.

That’s because you can use Google’s mobile friendly test tool. On top of that, by going on Google’s blog, you can also use their mobile usability report in order to audit your entire website. Either way, it’s important to do everything you can in order to ensure that your website is mobile friendly.

While not every business out there is going to be affected by Google’s update, if you’re a small business that’s currently relying on organic and local searches in order to generate revenue, then the changes to the algorithm are going to affect your traffic and visibility.

But despite the warning issued by Google though, it seems that there are still plenty of popular brands that are doing everything in their power to minimize the impact of Google’s mobile algorithm update. By doing so, they actually give the upper hand to small businesses which can, at least for a certain period of time, get more traffic and of course, make more sales.

How much of my traffic comes from mobile devices?

Learning more about the amount of traffic that you’re getting from mobile devices is very important for a wide range of marketing reasons. In this particular case, it’s going to help you judge how the latest Google algorithm is affecting your traffic. To do that, you’ll need to log into your website’s Google Analytics. Take a look at the left hand side and then click on the Audience header, go to Technology, then Mobile and finally go to Overview. At this point, you know exactly how many of your visitors come from mobile devices, so it’s very easy to judge how much the latest change may affect your business.

If you’re currently getting between five to ten percent of your traffic from mobile search and the majority of it stems from branded AdWords campaigns or/and is directed at your homepage, then it’s a good idea that you make your website mobile-friendly in the next sixteen months.

On the other hand, if 30 percent of your traffic comes from mobile search and it’s hitting various parts of your website, such as production description pages or your blog, then your business model depends on organic traffic a lot and you need to ensure you make your website mobile friendly as soon as possible.

While just a few years ago the amount of traffic websites would receive from mobile devices was quite negligible, these days it ranges from ten percent and goes as high as fifty percent for most websites. In fact, there are good chances that a good number of your clients are using their phones or tablets in order to read your newsletters, your blog, your Tweets or even your E-mails. The sooner you switch to mobile, the easier it’s going to be to serve your audience even better, but also generate more revenue.

Go mobile or go home

As we’ve pointed out in this article, Google’s shift to global mobile friendliness is a bold move and it aims at making every website on the planet mobile friendly. This is not a case where you can choose to do it or not. If you choose not to, then your website is simply going to be demoted from the search engine results page and it’s not going to show up no matter how well your products or services may serve those who are looking for them. To avoid such situations and losing business, hire someone to make your website mobile friendly and you’re certainly going to enjoy the increased traffic you’ll get.