Bodybuilding.com did some heavy lifting this spring.
The e-retailer set to work soon after Google announced at the end of the February that it would alter its algorithm for ranking websites on smartphones based on whether a site was easy to view and navigate on a smartphone. That change took effect April 21.
By giving retailers and other website operators an unprecedented two-month warning, Google may have been hinting the algorithm change would have a bigger impact than other changes in how Google ranked websites, such as the Panda update, says Brain Klais, founder and president at Pure Oxygen Labs LLC, a mobile marketing and mobile search engine optimization firm.
Google started displaying the mobile-friendly label underneath search links and before the description in smartphone search results in November 2014. While Bodybuidling.com earned that label, the announcement spurred the retailer’s decision to go from a dynamic serving website to responsive design, says James Petzke, the retailer’s search engine optimization program manager.
Responsive design is a format that adapts the look of a retail website to the device the consumer is using. It uses one code base, meaning retailers don’t have to operate several sites to account for the many types of screens consumers use to access the Internet. Dynamic serving is a hybrid approach between a responsive design site and a stand-alone mobile website. For a website that uses dynamic serving, the URL is the same on a mobile site and desktop but the server detects that a consumer is on a mobile device and displays different content, without redirecting the consumer to a specific mobile site.
Bodybuilding.com, an e-retailer of nutrition and workout products, had since the end of 2013 been slowly shifting from dynamic serving to responsive design, a design approach Google has recommended since 2012. Bodybuilding.com’s mobile web traffic has steadily grown over that year and a half period, as well, Petzke says. Smartphone visits grew from 30% of traffic to now 57% of traffic and account for 20% of revenue, he says.
Once Google made its announcement, the retailer made it a priority to complete the switchover to responsive design. “It was in direct response to the Google update,” Petzke says. Bodybuilding.com did the work in-house during those two months, dedicating about 25 employees to the switch.
Responsive design is a better format for consumers across the wide variety of screen sizes consumers use today, Petzke says. For example, even if a consumer adjusts the size of her browser on a desktop, the site will adjust to fit it. Also, Petzke knows Bodybuilding.com will look and feel the same across smartphones, tablets and desktops with responsive design. With the other formats, the website could look different to consumers. Also, responsive is easier for the retailer to maintain as it uses one set of software code, he says.
When April 21 arrived, the retailer didn’t see much of a difference in its mobile web traffic. But, it wasn’t expecting to see a change, Petzke says. Many of Bodybuildling.com’s competitors are mobile-friendly, and Bodybuilding recognized it needed to complete the mobile web upgrades to stay competitive, Petzke says.
“The impact could have been far more negative than positive,” Petzke says about the algorithm change. “It was a risk-avoidance move.”
Follow mobile business journalist April Dahlquist, associate editor, mobile, at Internet Retailer, at @MobileStrat360A.
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