Mobilegeddon: One of these Retail Sites is Not Like the Other
Internet retailers saw Mobilegeddon – the name given to a recent Google algorithm update that makes mobile-friendliness a more significant part of how the search engine delivers mobile results – come and go with little to show for the hype, at least for those who were expecting and planning for the update.
Many brands who have yet to launch mobile-friendly sites (either with a dedicated m.dot website or one using responsive or adaptive Web design), however, have seen their rankings drop. BrightEdge researchers, for instance, determined that as of April 27 (not even a full week after Google’s “deadline”) there was a 21 percent decrease in the number of non-mobile-friendly URLs on the first three pages of the SERPs compared to before the update. …
Not all retailers, however, played the wait-and-see game. Merz Apothecary, which just celebrated its 140th birthday, launched a new mobile site for its Smallflower.com digital property, in conjunction with their e-commerce partner Celerant Technology.
In the first few weeks since launch Smallflower.com has already seen overall conversation rate increase by nearly 37 percent, number of pages per session increase by 17 percent and transactions on mobile via organic Google search up 200 percent, as well as sales on the whole up 300 percent.
The results are not just direct. Prior to its mobile optimization, channel partner RetailMeNot was not referring leads to Smallflower.com at all. Now, the site converts an average of five transactions per week referred from RetailMeNot.
