What Mobile Optimized Search Means for the Future Web

Any small business with a non-mobile-optimized website has been all crickets since April 21, when Google changed its search algorithm to prioritize mobile-friendly websites. The changes will impact the web immediately, reorganizing Search Engines Results Pages (SERPs) in real time.

This article isn’t about the changes themselves; it’s about looking deeper into how Google is planning to change the way we communicate and organize our needs. That oldy-but-goody website is small potatoes compared to where the Internet’s largest megalith is about to take us. Get. Ready.

<<Learn more about the “significant” Google Algorithm Mobile update>>

A Clear Strategy for Google

The Twittersphere is filled with web development chatter about mobile readiness, and small businesses are madly clicking on the Google mobile-friendly test page. Meanwhile, Google has been unleashing a multi-part plan to change the way we use the Internet. You see, flying under the radar of mobile readiness is the other critical component of the new Algorithm change: Android app indexing.

Here’s the official statement from Google Webmaster Central:

Starting today, we will begin to use information from indexed apps as a factor in ranking for signed-in users who have the app installed. As a result, we may now surface content from indexed apps more prominently in search.

Did you do a doubletake? You should, because this update gives mobile app developers a significant edge in search. So that Google mobile-friendly test page everyone is clicking on right now – that is only the beginning.

In the future…

• You can expect web developers and app developers to become best friends.
• Web marketing will include app development
• The concept of a webpage as a billboard will diminish, as an increasing number of websites house apps and rely on an integrative, process-based approach
• The utility of mobile web searches will rise, leading to larger increases in mobile search traffic than in mobile traffic generally

We also expect the market for business communications apps to explode, meaning that deciphering the numerous communications applications out there will be tougher, and more rewarding.