Google, being the leading search provider in U.S., makes use of numerous algorithms in order to serve the most relevant search results to users. These algorithms are updated about 500 times in a single year.

Most updates rarely have a significant impact on the ranking of your local business website. But a new update called “Mobilegeddon” could have a greater impact on the ranking of websites than any Google update in history.

A website that is shown on different mobile devices.After April 21, 2015 if your website is not mobile responsive you may be penalized and that can hurt your businesses bottom line and sales.

What is Mobilegeddon?

If you own a local business, you may have heard of Mobilegeddon that was implemented by Google on April 21, 2015. This significant algorithm change calculates how your website renders and performs on mobile devices. This ranking signal has affected mobile searches drastically. Search results have been affected worldwide in a very significant way.

It would be wise to know the details of this change, to help you understand what changes you should expect as far as your site rankings are concerned. Use of mobile devices in the U.S has surpassed desktop use, as reported in February 2014. This implies that potential customers are more likely to search for your website or site content via their handsets rather than their computers.

Mobilegeddon rewards sites that are mobile-friendly by granting them higher rank whenever searches are conducted from mobile devices. Since most of your potential customers access the Internet using their smartphone, lacking a mobile responsive site will have a negative effect on your site rankings and on your business as a whole. Making your website mobile responsive is critical considering the number of mobile screen sizes that continue to grow. This latest Google algorithm update does not affect desktop or tablet searches.

Although it may sound apocalyptic, Mobilegeddon should not be the death of your local rankings and business’s site traffic. However, lack of preparation or failing to make recommendable changes will definitely cause your traffic to be affected.

SEO metric companies had already began tracking Mobilegeddon, and a good shift has been felt already since the implementation of this update with various reports highlighting a significant effect in mobile SEO visibility. These conclusions are drawn shortly after the launch of this update. Google officials have stated it could require some time to roll out completely.

Businesses which depend solely on people finding them via localized searches could see a decrease in their websites’ traffic as a result of this update. The common SEO theme that ‘content is king’ is slowly changing. Yes, content is extremely important, but the experience of the user will also be taken into consideration. If you have relevant, useful content on your site, but it’s not readable, then that will ultimately not give you any good results.

If you are yet to be affected by this update for lacking a mobile-friendly site, it would be an excellent idea to check your website’s mobile performance now and plan to make the necessary alterations. You may opt to conduct a Google’s mobile-friendly test on your site to find out any errors and fix them. A mobile-friendly label displayed right next to the site signifies that you’re safe.

Responsive Design

This is the practice of designing websites on a fluid grid which adjusts to the screen resolution of almost any mobile device, whether smartphones or tablets. Your website automatically updates to give potential customers the best viewing experience possible regardless of what device they’re making use of.

What are Some Responsive Design Benefits?

• You’ll be able to avoid a high bounce rate. About 48% of users say that in case a site is not responsive, they believe that indicates a business doesn’t care.
• You’ll offer your potential clients a better user experience. They will go through your content and leave satisfied without any frustrations.
• You are more likely to convert viewers into being your customers. Sixty-seven percent (67%) of users assert that they would purchase products or pay for services from a site that is mobile-friendly.
• You will be able to reach more customers. Over 50% of all local searches are done on mobile devices. By making your site mobile-friendly, you’ll have ensured that your potential customers find it easy interacting with your website from their handset.
• You will have saved a great deal of money and time. You will not incur extra development and maintenance costs for having a separate mobile website. You can then focus your time/resources into making your business site the best it can be.

Despite all that, there is some probability that you can maintain a high rank, even if your site is not mobile-friendly but containing relevant, high quality content. Although this change may have several effects on local business, it is noteworthy that a variety of qualifications will still be used to rank your site.

Local businesses may be surprised at how the number of visitors to their sites is going to drop. This is set to affect millions of sites and business on the web. Various local business owners have said that they will take advantage of this change by attempting to acquire traffic from those sites that are not mobile-friendly. This is thus, also a great opportunity for you as a business owner, so long as you make sure to follow up by making all changes required, quickly.

While several large corporations and businesses may be impacted by the update, small local businesses will feel the biggest impact. Most local businesses lack resources to fully update their sites for the growing mobile audience. However, with proper measures and immediate actions, this update may not have an effect on your site ranking. Overall, this update should prove to be good for both business owners and consumers alike.

Given the rapidly increasing mobile browsing trend, there is a big likelihood that you are losing out on online web traffic. This update will force many local business owners to adapt to the changing era, stimulating them to implement a mobile-friendly website update. Local businesses will be better off in the long run, while giving consumers the ultimate user experience at the same time.

For quite some time now, the technology industry has been continuously evolving at a frantic pace, releasing new gadgets – redesigning and re-imagining services for a connected and smarter world. On the other side, these new mobile devices present extra challenges which must be addressed by consumer acceptance with regard to the security and the usage of data (data usage). Based on this, below are the top mobile technology trends for 2015.

1. New Wi-Fi Standards

Emerging Wi-Fi standards, such as Waves 1 and 2 (802.11ac), 11ah, 11ad, and 11aq will increase the performance of Wi-Fi, making it more relevant to various applications like telemetry and also enable Wi-Fi to offer new services.

In the next few years, demands on its infrastructure will rise as more Wi-Fi-enabled gadgets are being used in many companies, as applications like location-sensing demand the placement of denser access-point, and as cellular-offloading becomes more and more popular.

The opportunities enabled by these new standards and the performance that new applications need will require many companies to replace or revise their Wi-Fi infrastructure.

2. Mobile Metrics and Monitoring Tools 

Diversity in mobile devices makes comprehensive app testing difficult. The nature of the cloud services and mobile networks, which support them, can lead to bottlenecks in performance, which are difficult to locate.

However, with these mobile tools, usually known as Application Performance Monitoring (APM), this is possible. APM provides accurate statistics regarding which OSS and mobile devices are implemented, monitors user behavior, and provides visibility into the app behavior to easily determine which app features are being exploited.

3. Cyber Security

This is another mobile technology trend for 2015 that has also been on the top of the list for some time now. It’s been the most remarkable app for demonstrating that almost all things connected to the Internet can or eventually will be hacked. There have even been cases of technology companies being hacked, go figure. This tells you that no person (or company) is cyber-safe and the road map to the future is full of promises since it leads through advanced and new cyber security technologies that are better than the current-existing perimeter firewall-like defenses. 2015 will definitely come with significant changes in the mobile technology industry as it greatly responds to the recent sophistication and increases of cyber attacks. Better solutions will be innovated to protect endpoints and mobile devices, such as advances in authentication algorithms, BYOD solutions, and also in the use of default encryption.

4. Multi-Architecture/Multi-platform Application Development Tools

Most companies will require application development tools mainly to support the three key platforms (Windows, Android, and iOS), along with the other three application architectures (native, mobile Web, and hybrid). This year, tool selection will be a very complex balancing act involving several non-technical and technical issues, such as vendor stability versus productivity. Additionally, most companies will require a portfolio of so many tools to deliver to the platforms and architectures they need.

5. Mobile-Connected Smart Objects

By the next few years, the average affluent household in a mature market will consist of so many smart objects, such as domestic appliances, LED light bulbs, medical devices, toys, controllable power sockets, and sporting equipment just to mention a few. Most domestic objects are integrated with the mobile devices through certain apps. Tablets and Smartphones perform a lot of functions, including analyzing and displaying information, acting as a remote control, updating firmware, ordering the replacement of consumables, paying for subscriber services, and interfacing with various social networks to easily monitor “things”, which can post or tweet.

6. 5G

As the next stage in the continuous evolution and innovation of the mobile trends, 5G will be more about a brand new air-interface with very fast speeds and will also address energy efficiency, reliability, cost, connection to devices and network congestion. Last year’s technologies for new antenna/RF – wider bandwidths and Massive MIMO – proposed small cell deployment in very high mmWave frequencies, reduction in latency, shortened transmission time-intervals, and new modulation approaches beyond OFDM. On the other hand, with a horizon in commercialization in 5 years time, this year is when the world will move from these particular concepts to technology standard development.

7. Enterprise Mobile Management (EMM)

EMM is simply a term that fully describes the future convergence and evolution of so many mobile management, support and security technologies. They include mobile application management, application containerization, and mobile device management, together with components of enterprise file sharing and synchronization. These tools will mature, then grow in score and address several different mobile management requirements across all popular PCs, tablets and smart phones.

8. Green Communications

According to research, communications technologies are believed to be approximately 2% – 4% responsible for the carbon footprint usually generated by human activities. This clearly shows the need to mainly focus on controlling and managing these numbers. Being one of the current mobile trends, green communications first tackles mobile networks due to their high-energy use. Base stations and switching centers could possibly count for between 60–80% of the total energy consumed by the whole communication system. Renewable energy sources, intelligent management of power system and environmentally friendly batteries are a few of proposed solutions among mobile trends this year.

9. Wearable Devices

The Smartphone and other mobile devices has become the hub of personal-area network of various wearable devices such as on-body health-care sensors, smart jewelry and display devices – like Google Glass, a wide range of sensors embedded in shoes and clothes as well as smart watches. These devices communicate with certain mobile apps to deliver the required information in new ways. They also enable a variety of products and services in fields such as hobbies, health care, fitness, fashion and sport.

10. High-Precision Location Sensing 

Knowing a location of an individual within a few meters away is the key-enabler of highly relevant contextual services and information delivery. Apps exploiting precise-indoor location now use technologies such as imaging, geomagnetic, ultrasonic beacons, and Wi-Fi. Additionally, technologies like smart lighting are very important mobile trends in 2015. The use of precise-indoor location sensing in conjunction with mobile apps can enable a new generation of highly personalized information and services.

Conclusively, companies wishing to unlock full potential and capacity of mobility should master several different skills and technologies, a lot of which are not familiar to some IT staff. These trends in mobile technology for 2015 are good for both individual and organizational use.

You may be asking yourself how long will this technology buzz be around. If you are in the baby boomer stage then you missed most of this craze and may reluctant to join the buzz.  If you are in generation X then you are caught between knowing some of the lingo but still not being quite as into as your kids.  If you are in generation Y then you grew up with technology and the reason why it is not going anywhere.

As we are always told the youth is our future and that holds true for technology. Many of the tycoons today built their fortune on technology and the internet and they are helping to create the next wave to techno tycoons.  Today people see technology as a way to live not just another tool to make life easier.

Technology has become a way of life and every part of the way we live some how involves technology.  If you drive a car, most likely it has a computer dashboard with a GPS (Global Positioning System) and XM radio.  If you go to the doctor, most likely all of your record are on a computer system (if not now they are heading that way).  If you get coffee, may of the espresso machines are computerized.  Every part of our lives involves technology and this blog embraces that fact.

Now that we have the obvious out of the way we are hear to help you understand technology in a lay person’s manor.  This will not be your normal everyday tech blog since there are hundreds of those around the internet today.  The purpose of this blog is to help cut through all the B.S. and help you understand the basics of technology and how it help you with your daily life.

We will discuss how technology is impacting different sectors of society and how you can play a part in this change.  We will look at the different types of mobile technology available today and what are the best devices for your needs.  We will also look at technology trends and how they can impact your career and possibly help you make more money.

This blog is not for the techno geek, but the average person that just wants to understand technology a little better and see how you fit in.  We will look at the current events in the technology world and explain them in layman terms so you can get the just of the topic and have a better understand of what all the hype is about.

So join us on the journey to help everyone become more technologically savvy.