Effective April 21st, Google announced  “mobile friendliness” would be a major factor in search rankings for searches made from smart devices going forward. Their new algorithm will favor "mobile friendly," websites giving them higher rankings than sites that are only optimized for desktops and laptops.

This change means that now, more than ever, organizations need to embrace mobile technology if SEO is important to their web presence or loose rankings with Google. 

Some are calling it "MobileGeddon" which seems a bit extreme.  In reality, it's a wake up call.  As a leading search engine, Google has a responsibility to it's end user.  With more and more users searching the web via smartphones and tablets, it makes sense that favorable ranking is given to sites that are mobile ready and provide the best experience.  That's Google honoring it's reputation to serve up the best results to it's end user.  Online entities need to do the same. 

Some stats to digest. 

According to Pew Research:

As of October 2014:

64% of American adults own a smartphone.

As of January 2014:

• 90% of American adults own a cell phone
• 32% of American adults own an e-reader
• 42% of American adults own a tablet computer

According to a Small Business Trends July, 2014 Report:

60% of all web usage now comes from mobile which, according to ComScore is up 50% from the prior year. 

Additionally, according to reports from SEO platform BrightEdge, about 23% of organic traffic to websites now originates from Android or iPhone devices while 12% comes from tablets.

Bottom line, if you want to stay ahead in the digital world you need to keep up with the technology.