seo

Mobile-First Indexing SEO

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Search engines online along with Google are constantly trying to adapt to their user’s needs. They work hard to make the experience as best as possible for their people who use their site to search for services or products near them. Seeing as now more than half of the traffic generated on search engines comes from phones and tablets, mobile-first indexing will soon be an industry standard. Mobile-first indexing may leave many business owners wondering what this all means for all their websites. Some things you may ask yourself are: Will I have to redesign my entire site? Will my rankings change if my site is less mobile-friendly than others? Our mobile-first indexing SEO experts will be able to guide you through what this all means for your site and how it could work for you.

Will My Desktop Site Be Ignored with Mobile-First Indexing?

Not really. All mobile-first indexing means is that the mobile version of your website will now be considered the main version of your site. In the past, Google would index the desktop version of a website first, which meant that if your website wasn’t optimized for mobile it could still have a chance to rank higher in the mobile results. Now with mobile-first indexing by the Smartphone Google-bot, websites that are poorly optimized for mobile may end up ranking lower in mobile and desktop results. Fortunately, if your website is already optimized for mobile you’ll potentially not have to alter much if you are already content with your Google rankings. The downside is that if your website was ranking well before, but had poor optimization for mobile, you may see your rank drop drastically. Especially if your competitors have their web pages optimized for mobile.

Mobile-First Indexing is Happening, Will You Be Ready?

Google is saying that if your site is already responsive, being that your site adjusts automatically to fit any screen a user has, then your site is better off than most regarding mobile-first indexing. If your site currently is poorly optimized for mobile or isn’t responsive then that should be your number one priority. A good portion of search engine optimization is ensuring that user experiences are the best possible. The Google Algorithms are always working to favor websites that provide the best user experience, this is evident of Google going forward with the mobile first index.

Mobile-First Indexing Won’t Affect Your Site? Go Through This Checklist

It should be your priority to ensure your website is optimized for mobile, but especially now with mobile-first indexing. You must pay attention now more than ever if you have a mobile website that is separate from your desktop site. We encourage you to run through this checklist to make sure your website will be ready when that change comes.
  • Content Loading Time: Regardless of how responsive is, users are always want faster websites. The speed of your website has always been taken into account by Google and now it’s even more important with the Smartphone Google-bot. It can always help to have your web page design optimized especially with mobile internet constantly getting faster.
  • Structured Data: If you don’t already have structured data put into action on your site, we highly recommend that you address that. Ensure that all of your schema markup that is implemented on your desktop website is also implemented on your mobile website.
  • Content: All the content that is on your desktop site should also be on your mobile website. This will ensure that any of your useful or high-value content will not rank poorly because of mobile-first indexing.
  • Meta Titles and Meta Description: We recommend that the titles and descriptions on your desktop and mobile pages all have the same information and keywords. This does not mean that they have to be identical but they should be as similar as possible.
Google has also made some guidelines that will help ensure that your site won’t be hurt by mobile-first indexing.

Does Mobile-First Indexing Mean That Google has a Separate Mobile Index?

No, it does not. The change to mobile-first indexing does not mean that Google will make changes to the index itself. Rather, Google will be implementing changes on how new content is added to the index. This also means that just because Google is moving towards mobile first indexing does not mean that your desktop website will be wiped from the index and replaced by your mobile websites. This simply means that having a website that is optimized for mobile will be a larger factor in how your website ranks.

The Time To Prepare for Mobile- First Indexing is Now

Right now Google is claiming to roll out mobile-first indexing gradually, but our SEO experts know that mobile-first indexing is already live. If your company’s website scores poorly on Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test because it’s not optimized for mobile use, we strongly recommend addressing that today. In the meantime Google is notifying websites that are being switched over to mobile-first indexing. Although you may not have received an alert yet about your website it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be proactive about how to prepare for the inevitable change on the horizon by making sure that your website is appealing to mobile-first indexing. The SEO world is ever evolving and staying on top of these trends can be challenging. You may have worked hard to get the rankings you have now but with mobile-first indexing coming, a SEO and web development company can help you keep those rankings.