On April 21st Google is going to pull a move that has recently been nicknamed the "mobilegeddon."

Mobile-friendliness will now significantly impact rank, which can affect your website if you are behind on the times. 

As more people use mobile devices to access the Internet, our algorithms have to adapt to these usage patterns. In the past, we’ve made updates to ensure a site is configured properly and viewable on modern devices. We’ve made it easier for users to find mobile-friendly web pages and we’ve introduced App Indexing to surface useful content from apps.

Takaki Makino, Chaesang Jung, and Doantam Phan, Google Webmaster Central 

How It Works

Despite Google giving us a heads up, they did not share as many details as we would like. Typical Google. That said, Google’s Gary Illyes did provide some insight about the newest update at SMX West.

• Page-by-Page Basis 
  One thing to keep in mind is that this is not a site-wide rank. So if 1 of your pages displays well on mobile, but 3 do not, then that 1 page will rank higher. 
• Responsive Design
  Your fully responsive website may make it easier for most people to view on their smartphones. This will assist in helping you pass the test, but it will not hold a higher rank than other styles of mobile design. 
• Crawling
  Google bots MUST be able to crawl the site's CSS and JavaScript to pass the test. 

Preparing For Mobilegeddon 

So, how do we prepare aside from getting everyone we know to try out websites on their smart phones? Well, you can do that if you want to drive your friends crazy, or you can just follow some easy steps below. 

The Mobile Test
The Google mobile test and Webmaster Tools Mobile Usability can show you problem areas of your website so that you can make improvements before the big day (April 21). 

What it tests for: 

• Crawlable images, JavaScript, and CSS
• Are some areas of the site being blocked that should be crawled? 
• Are your pages not being found, returning soft-404s or 404s?
• How has the smartphone Googlebot found these errors?
• From which pages and XML sitemaps are they being linked or referred?

Addressing Concerns

You may have to dig deeper into the realms of SEO and mobile-friendliness to fully address some issues that may be damaging your rank. Tools like SEMRush, Moz, and companies that specialize in responsive design/SEO may help your chances at surviving mobilegeddon. 

 For Google, mobile comprised almost half of all traffic from June to November, with 52 percent coming from desktops and 48 percent from mobile.

ClickZ

Keep in mind, this isn't all about the rank when you consider how many people are using smartphones to access the internet. If a site-user can barely use your website on their phone, they may not come back. 

Stop forcing users to scroll in and out with their thumb and forefinger to read your content. Give us a call, and we'll walk you through exactly what you need to do not only to provide the best user-experience for your market but also to pass Google's next big update.