The Content Effect of Mobilegeddon

We know that Google has updated their crawler, and we understand the main points of what is expected from here on out. Right? Lets delve a little deeper to how this mobile-friendly ranking might just impact more than User-Experience.

 

So Google’s Mobilegeddon is here, and if you haven’t heard much about it yet or want a recap on what just happened, you can check out our last posting which will give you the ins and outs of the whole deal.

But what we didn’t cover in our article on what was going to happen was the impact it might have on other aspects of digital marketing.

See, for website owners this algorithm update meant that sites needed to be mobile-friendly, sure. But what about content marketing? What about the idea that the way we handle links in optimisation might change?

 

Content Marketing

Content has been the ‘in’ word for the past 12 months. We’ve heard how it will change optimisation, how content is the only way that websites will be able to survive the coming age.

Not all of that is true – there has been lots of exaggeration, which is what happens when we (myself included!) get excited. However, where there are exaggerations there are often also truths, and that is the case with the bigging-up of content marketing.

So lets assume content marketing really is a big deal. How does Mobilegeddon affect this and how can we best prepare?

My thinking is that the way we write for mobile, whilst similar to desktop currently, is likely going to change. The ongoing increase in the speed at which we receive information, along with the surprisingly more-efficient methods we are using (think anything from audio, video and emoticons, to the coming ‘pokes’ with the iWatch) is going to drive down our ability to focus on long-tail information.

This blog, for example, is past the upper-limits of what I believe we will read on mobile devices in the future.

So to bring this back to Google’s recent algorithm change, we must bare in mind that whilst Google has publicly claimed that this mobile ranking-change simply looks at certain UX aspects like layout, we should assume that it will soon be upgraded to decide whether a user would be likely to finish reading a piece of content.

 

What About Link Strategies?

As with content I think the way we go about building links for a site needs to be adjusted to deal with Google’s ongoing changes. That’s a whole other kettle of fish though, so check back later for our next posting!