New Google Algorithm to Affect Half of CRE Industry
The Change: Two weeks ago, Google announced a new search algorithm that favors “mobile friendly” websites in search results - a phenomenon popularly dubbed as "Mobilegeddon." In other words, if your company's website is deemed not mobile friendly, the website will appear lower in Google's search results. This algorithm change was put into effect one week ago.
Why Google Decided to Change: Mobile search has officially overtaken desktop search, according to a Google announcement this week, and as the discrepency between mobile and desktop search continues to grow, Google wants people searching from their mobile devices brought to relevant, timely and mobile friendly content.
Why Commercial Real Estate Companies Should Care: Bisnow studied a wide-range of commercial real estate companies and found that 45.6% of commercial real estate companies failed Google's mobile ready-ness test. As a comparison, earlier this week, Internet marketing firm Portent tested 25,000 top web ranked web pages and found that 40% failed Google’s mobile ready-ness test. A conjecture as to the higher failure rate in the commercial real estate industry: the web's top sites stay current to internet and SEO trends that Google views favorably.
Two Quick Tips:
If you’re afraid of losing business to Mobilegeddon, you should be. Luckily, there are a few tips and tricks you can use to test and modify your site to make it more mobile friendly.
1. Test Your Website
Google has created an online website where you can test your company’s mobile-optimization. Click here to test your website.
2. Follow Google's List of Mobile Guidelines
Here are a few ways Google is defining a mobile-unfriendly website:
- Websites with text deemed too small to read on mobile;
- Websites that are graphic heavy and take a long time to load on mobile;
- Websites without easy-to-use navigation buttons, especially on mobile devices;
Google has created a list of mobile guidelines. Make sure to send these to your tech department or if you would like the Bisnow team to take an in-depth look at your website, send us an email.
