Need clarification about April 21st Google update

[Chris Ratchford]

I have a client who has a website that is not responsive or mobile-friendly.

His current website company is one of those big-box dental website providers. They're offering him to make his website "mobile-friendly" but only 6 pages.

His website is 80+ pages, but they're only going to give him a 6 page mobile site.

I was under the impression that your website needs to be 100% responsive/mobile-friendly.

Can someone please confirm?

Thanks!

 

[Linda Buquet]

I was under the impression that your website needs to be 100% responsive/mobile-friendly.

Hi Chris,

No it can be either responsive or a mobile site. PLUS...

Per Google: "The Mobile-Friendly Ranking Factor Is On A Page-By-Page Basis"

See lots more details here:

<a href="http://www.localsearchforum.com/google-local/28886-google-mobile-update-what-you-need-know-local-search-engine-optimization.html">The Google Mobile Update - What you Need to Know for Local SEO</a>

Plus I'm planning to do a big round up of all the latest info tomorrow - April 1st.

 

[Phil Rozek]

@Chris

What Linda said. As long as the homepage, contact page, and the top-4 most-important / most-visited pages are mobile-friendly, the update shouldn't really affect your client.

You might also see which pages show up in the sitelinks section when you search for your client by name, and make sure those receive some mobile mojo.

Plus, it is one hell of a lot better than having no mobile-friendly pages.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

If there's a relatively simple process to make the whole site mobile friendly, you should do it.

I would also look at your landing pages in GA and see what pages people are landing on. Those are the pages I would make mobile friendly if I could only choose a few.

 

[2dogsdesign]

I would also encourage the client to look ahead - although right now Google is saying they are only using mobile as a mobile rank algorthm, I would not be surprised that having a mobile version can help in desktop rank in the future. Google likes to do those things!

But the client should also want to give their users the best experience for the whole website.....but if money is a factory then something is better than nothing.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Good points all.

Also check out the cool free tool I shared in post #18 below.

<a href="http://www.localsearchforum.com/local-search/29348-google-mobile-algorithm-bigger-than-penguin-panda.html">The Google Mobile Algorithm to be Bigger than Penguin or Panda</a>