Are Large Businesses Ready for Mobile Search?

If you have not heard by now, Google will be making massive changes to the mobile search algorithm which will change the internet forever. The idea behind this update is that Google will be promoting websites that have a mobile friendly website. This update has been given the name #mobilegeddon.

Because mobile search has surpassed PC search, Google feels like they need to give an upper hand to companies that have already taken the initiative to have a mobile friendly website which makes a lot of sense when it comes to most consumers that are using their phones to surf the web.

What is interesting is that only two-thirds of the Fortune 100 companies say they are not ready for the change in mobile search. A third party SEO company crawled all the Fortune 500 websites with Google PageSpeed Insights API and the survey they came out with states that 44% of fortune 500 web sites failed the test. That is almost half the fortune 500 companies. Below is a graph that will give you a better idea on what the survey looked like.

How does Mobile Friendly effect SEO?

Mobile friendly websites have different layouts depending on the size of the device or the browser. A lot of companies either do not have a mobile website or have created a separate mobile friendly view of the page but it is recommended that you use a layout called responsive design.

Responsive Design dynamically adapts your content depending on the size of the browser window. As the size of the screen changes the number of columns displayed, the menu layout, pictures, and other elements scale to the optimal size. Compared to a separate mobile site Responsive Design is considered to be more extensible to new devices, easier to maintain, and more effective from an SEO perspective

Will this SEO Risk Effect the Fortune 500 Companies?

Google has documented many times that there will be an SEO penalty for not having your website mobile friendly (see Google Mobile Friendliness and Search Ranking). There are many options of fixing this problem and for a large company this is never easy. A lot of fortune 500 companies are not worried about Mobilegddon because they feel they have strong brand awareness and many external backlinks for both paid and organic search. The truth is Google owns the search engines an no matter how large your company is they will drop you in the search engines because you have not made the shift towards a mobile friendly website. Below are some Fortune 500 companies that test favorably for mobile devices

  1. Walmart

  2. Exxon Mobile

  3. Chevron

  4. Berkshire Hathaway

  5. Apple

  6. Phillips 66

  7. General Motors

  8. Ford Motor

  9. General Electric

  10. Valero Energy

  11. AT&T

  12. CVS Caremark

  13. Fannie Mae

  14. UnitedHealth Groups

  15. McKesson

  16. Verizon

  17. Hewlett-Packard

  18. J.P. Morgan Chase

  19. Costco Wholesale

  20. Express Scripts Holding

If your business needs help transitioning to a mobile friendly platform let us know because we can help. Not only can will help create your mobile friendly website but we will make sure it is not a high risk site and will be SEO certified.