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Hi, it’s Rob Heppell here and on today’s show we’re going to be talking about mobile search and April 21st which is Mobile day, where Google is going to update their algorithm to really take into account websites that are mobile-friendly or not.
Topics discussed / In this video:
- 0:44 – Google Algorithm update on April 21st for mobile-friendly websites – including funeral homes
- 2:06 – 90% of adults in North America have a smartphone
- 3:09 – Our clients in metro areas get more mobile users than desktop users to their websites
- 3:21 – Google likes mobile responsive websites the best
- 5:42 – Here’s where you can get a funeral home website that is mobile responsive
- 6:36 – Location of the 2015 Funeral Rock Stars event announced
- 8:21 – Does Google think your funeral home website is mobile friendly?
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Welcome to another edition of this Funeral Strategy and Marketing Show. Now, before I dive into today’s topic about mobile search, I want you stick around to the end, where I’m going to give you free resource to check to see if your mobile website is mobile friendly and ready for Mobile Day. Now, let’s get right into the topic. Mobile responsive and mobile ready websites are going to be a necessity for all businesses starting April 21st because Google has announced that on April 21st, they’re going to be updating their algorithm to identify websites that are mobile-friendly or not.
Here’s the article right from the Webmaster Central Blog from Google and I’ll just read this one little part, “More mobile-friendly website in search results” is the title of the section., “Starting April 21st, we will be expanding the use of mobile friendliness as a ranking signal, this change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact on our search results, consequently users will find it easier to get relevant high-quality search results that are optimized for the devices.”
That’s right from the horse’s mouth, right from Google. You may be wondering, “Well why is this so important?” Some other stats about mobile usage and I’m sure you might even be watching this podcast on your mobile device itself. First of all, mobile usage has skyrocketed and in some aspects it’s even more popular than desktop searches. Some of the recent stats are 90% of adults in North America have a smartphone that have internet capability, 42% of them have a tablet. From Google, their own stats says 48% of mobile users start to their searches with a search engine on their mobile phone. Mobile is here to stay and it’s just getting more and more popular. You should be able to check your own website stats if your Google Analytics setup. They always check if it’s mobile device or not and they’ll even break down whether it’s an iPhone or Android or Blackberry and then the different tablets as well.
We’re doing some checking on our own client sites and most of our clients at least have 25% of their visitors are using a mobile device or a tablet and even up to third of them. In major markets, in metropolitan areas, a couple of our clients actually have more mobile users on their website than desktop users. Those sites have to be mobile friendly and Google has also stated that they feel that mobile responsive is the way to go. The difference is some people have mobile version of their website, so there’s two separate versions. What happens is when you get into different devices like in the middle part, like an iPad, they’re kind of in between. Here and this is what mobile responsive is, so here’s a website here, McCall’s website. You can see how it’s laid out and this is how it looks on a computer as well, on a desktop.
If you were to spin it, what mobile responsive is is that the website actually responds to the width of the device and you can see here that instead of these images being for across, they’re now two up. You don’t have to scroll side to side, you don’t have to zoom in or pinch it with your fingers. Now, if you are then on your iPhone or other mobile device and here’s iPhone 4, so it’s even a small display. You can see the same site is now … When you scroll, these images are now one on top of each other. If it’s sideways, then it just makes it a little bit wider. This just shows when a website is mobile responsive that it then conforms to the width of device that’s being watched on.
Now, the benefit of that is that you only have one website. Google has actually said that having a mobile responsive site is the best thing to do because then you’re not having two different sites and that you’re not sending different signals and having devices that are maybe in between a small phone like this versus a tablet or something a little bit bigger where it doesn’t matter what device a mobile responsive site is viewed on, it just conforms to whatever width the device is. If you need help with that if your website isn’t mobile-friendly or mobile responsive, those are things that we can do. We’ve been upgrading our clients’ website if they’ve asked us to mobile responsive and any new sites I think in the last two years that we’ve created are mobile responsive. That’s built right into every site and should be going forward.
Now, if you have a WordPress website, we can actually retrofit your current theme if you want and so that’s not a lot of money or if you’re just unhappy with your current website and you’d like to have us create a mobile responsive website for you, you can just go to FuneralFuturistWebsites.com and check out some of the sites that we’ve done there.
Some happenings that are going on in the world Funeral Futurist is that I’ve just announced the Funeral Rock Stars event for 2015. It’s going to be right here in beautiful Victoria, British Columbia. I’m hosting it at my private business club, the Union Club of British Columbia. It’s in the heart of downtown Victoria. The Union Club is right across the street from the Empress Hotel, kitty corner to the Inner Harbor and it’s just going to be a great venue.
I won’t go into all the details, just go to FuneralRockStars.com for the introductory video there and the complete program and details. It’s going to include a tour through McCall’s Funeral Home and so you can see how a 92% cremation funeral home is still healthy and profitable and successful in a market that’s predominately or almost all cremation. I’d love for you to come to my hometown and for me to show you around and also for you to attend the Funeral Rock Stars.
Now, if you have any other questions at all, please submit them to me. Let me know and I’d love to cover them in another episode of the Funeral Strategy and Marketing Show. You can leave a question or comment below this video and if you like what you hear, please leave me a review on iTunes. Hopefully, you’re subscribed to the podcast on iTunes that would be great.
Just a quick recap of today’s presentation is that April 21st is Mobile Day. Google is updating their algorithm, so you want to make sure that your website is up to date. You can just do a quick check if you want if you do a search for your funeral home. Now, it’s going to be hard to see on here, but just do a search on your phone for your funeral home or funeral homes in your town and hopefully you can see that there where it says, “In the text,” and I’ll leave, there’ll be a screenshot in the episode. Right below the URL, it says, “Mobile-friendly,” so if your site isn’t mobile friendly that won’t be there. If your site is mobile-friendly, you’re good to go. Do that. Do that immediately, also make sure that you check your rankings after April 21st to see if there’s been any adjustment. If you’re mobile ready and your competitors aren’t, you might get a jump in rankings from a mobile device. Otherwise, if you’re not ready, you might see a drop.
Now, the reason why this is so important is that since so many people have mobile phones, 90% as the statistics say, when people maybe at the nursing home or at hospice and it’s kind of those final hours and they know they have to start to do something. You know it’s like, there’s maybe not a lot of communication going on. People might just pull up their phone, start to do some searches for funeral homes in your area, you want to make sure you’re at the top of that list. It’s really important to get on this.
Now, the free resource is right from Google and it is to check to see if your website is mobile friendly. The URL is http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly. I’ll put that in the show notes as well as it will be on the bottom of the screen for the video.
Thanks a lot for spending time with me today. I know that you’re busy and it’s my goal to help you serve as many families as possible. Make sure you check back soon for another episode of the Funeral Strategy and Marketing Show.
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