Blog Content if Google has stated it doesn't like your blog?

[brianmadden]

Hi guys,

In the new 'mobile usability' tab in Webmaster Tools, Google has stated that our blog isn't offering a good experience for users. Something we already knew and I want to change, but I can't get the budget approved to complete the work. I was just wondering if you think Google isn't going to hold my content very high as a result. I want to produce more content on our  blog around our valuable keywords in hope to improve our rankings, but if Google isn't holding our site in high regard I'm thinking there may not be much point in it.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks

Brian

[RafalJ]

is your blog only available on mobile devices? if so, then there is probably not much point posting anything before fixing the usability, but if its normally accessible on desktops then it will get credit in desktop search results

[RangeMarketing]

Hi Brian,

Google continues to push towards a 'mobile first' approach and I think you have a good reason to be slightly concerned. It makes sense to invest in this now because it's just going to become more and more important.

If you are producing high quality content I don't think Google will discredit it completely, however, not having a good mobile experience for users could potentially hurt your CTR and bounce rate on mobile. Google recently added (and I believe is still testing) a 'Mobile-friendly' tag in search results that lets the user know which results are or are not mobile-friendly.

All in all, I wouldn't completely stop producing content if you are seeing good results, but you really should push to invest in making your website mobile-friendly sooner than later.

Hope this helps you with your dilemma!

[EricaMcGillivray]

So yes, Google is starting to factor in mobile user experience as one of it's many ranking factors. It is still a bit unknown how this works -- machine learning or human review? -- and exactly how much you're going to get dinged.

But if you can't get the budget, then that's a different issue. You need to be making a solid business case for spending the budget to get a mobile site. You need to dive into your analytics and figure out the user experience for someone coming in on mobile. Figure out how much money you're losing because of this experience. Figure out how much potential traffic you'll get. Figure out how best to tackle the project. (Depending on your site, you might not be able to make everything mobile right away. Example, Moz's site is terrible for mobile, which we're planning on fixing. However, the blog and Moz.com marketing/resource pages are the priority. Putting our software into a mobile experience is a different project.) Best of luck!