Every year Google makes hundreds of changes to its search algorithm. The motivation is always the same- to deliver the best results possible to users. This year, Google announced a major update that will affect search results in significant ways. The announcement was made on February 26, 2015 on Google’s Webmaster Central Blog, an unusual move by the search engine in that most algorithm updates come with little or no warning. For search marketers, knowing the specific details of the change as well as an exact roll out date is helpful to improve search engine optimization.

About the Algorithmic Update Rolling Out on April 21

In an effort to deliver the best possible results to the increasing number of mobile users, Google is expanding its use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking factor starting April 21. Once rolled out, the algorithmic change is expected to affect mobile queries in all languages and have an impact more significant than both Google Panda and Google Penguin. At the time of the announcement, Google also talked about App Indexing for a better search experience. So the mobile-friendly update by Google will include two important changes to help users find the most relevant and timely mobile-friendly search results:

• More high quality mobile-friendly websites in search results

• More relevant content from indexed apps in search results

6 Things You Need to Know about Google’s Upcoming Mobile-Friendly Update

1. The Changes Google is Making on April 21

Recently, we’ve seen Google test out many changes to apps, Google Play and the presentation of mobile-friendly results up the SERPs. We also saw the search engine giant add Mobile Usability Report in Google Webmaster Tools and send warnings to webmasters with non-mobile friendly sites. Clearly these changes were in preparation for the 4/21 update. At core though, Google just wants users to have a great online experience and adapting to the new mobile usage patterns, the search engine seeks to improve mobile online experiences. So just give your users a great experience and Google will reward your efforts.

2. Will the update affect your desktop rankings too?

On a panel at SMX Munich, Zineb Ait Bahajji from Google answered this question with a non-hesitant no. This leads to the rational conclusion that Google will launch a new mobile crawler to parse, index, and evaluate mobile search results without desktop repercussions

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Today’s search engine optimization strategies have mutated drastically, in order to keep up with Google’s ever-changing algorithms. Although national SEO is crucial, local marketing strategies offer a majorly viable source of traffic and potential income. In fact, some businesses will gain more profitability, by catering to a local audience, instead of focusing on the national market.

Of course, in order to do this, it is imperative to follow the appropriate steps to optimize pages for your local state, city and general region. There are innumerable ways to reap the benefits. These methods will be discussed in-depth below.

Building Specific Pages for Individualized Locations

In order to rank appropriately, within your local market, it is of the utmost importance to target these areas using suitable content. By utilizing location pages and URLs for each specific city and state, you’ll certainly rank better. There are numerous advantages of building distinguished pages for each city, since you can actually optimize each page for the search engine. When you set up a page for your specific city and state, you’ll want to rely on the standard SEO guidelines for optimizing and ranking that page.

• Use appropriate H1 tags

• Page titles are crucial

• Geo-specific keywords in content

• Use localized URLs

• Local keywords in IMG tags, when possible

Although it is possible to build content for each individual page quickly, it is advised to do so in a measured manner, in order to ensure that each page is unique. If you have specific operational hours, testimonials or reviews for a particular location, make sure to delegate these to the specific localized page. Once all pages have met a conclusion, ensure that they’re linked together in one form of another. For instance, you can build a main page, which acts as a base and links to the other individualized location pages.

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