What is Mobile First Indexing: How to Prepare For the Change?

The last decade has provided some massive technological breakthroughs.

Who would have thought the big, clunky “mobile gadget” would serve as a mini-billboard and your go-to tech for basically everything you do in life?

2019 has proven that mobile phones are nearly as important as the food we eat.

And Google would agree with us there.

Adding to the many changes that have occurred over the last decade, Google has switched priority from desktop to mobile. 55% of all traffic comes from mobile devices — a ratio that is expected to increase every year. mobile-first indexing is one major result of this behavior.

In this article, we’ll outline how you can prepare yourself professionally for this big change.

What Do We Mean by ‘Mobile-First Approach’?

Google will begin to index and rank your site based on your mobile experience content, as opposed to your desktop experience.

So, the pages you visit from a Google search are based on the mobile versions, and how Google has aligned and indexed them.

Why is a mobile-first approach important now?

Mobile-first indexing ranking is already happening as we speak, which is a huge part of why it’s becoming increasingly important for business owners and marketers.

3 Important Mobile Optimization Factors

To keep up with the mobile-first approach, you need to focus on enhancing your visitors’ experience with mobile optimization.

This includes providing a high-quality experience, ensuring a smooth landing page visit and developing a highly responsive site design, along with many other factors.

Here are the top three factors to keep in mind with mobile site optimization.

1. Loading Speed

A simple second of delay on your computer is a multi-second delay on mobile devices.

This is because mobiles are prone to slower loading capabilities — and this extra second is enough to encourage a visitor to abandon your site.

Loading time can be improved by:

• Reducing the amount of content you have on each page
• Making images mobile-friendly
• Adopting accelerated mobile page protocols

 
Loading page time isn’t only important to your user, but for your search rankings as well, which offers even more reason to make your site mobile-friendly ASAP.

2. Site Interactivity

When it comes to desktop sites, small, interactive buttons are acceptable since users have a mouse to click them. However, mobile devices require slightly different treatment.

The buttons for mobile pages must be larger and easier for fingers to click on. This requires customizing the layout to help users scroll through and click with ease.

3. Image and Video Availability

This is a big one.

Video and image visibility and accessibility for mobile devices must be double-checked.

If your video player isn’t responsive and optimized for mobile devices, the video may load to full-screen size, making it too large for users to view.

To check for this, simply load your site on a mobile phone and view your content personally before making any changes.

How Will Google Rank You If Your Website Isn’t Mobile Optimized?

Issues occur when the web page content isn’t aligned with mobile and desktop versions. This is usually because of space and sizing issues, which means there’s less content on the mobile version. If the missing content contains important ranking signals, then your page can rank lower.

This is the main issue when it comes to Google rankings and the lack of mobile-first indexing optimization.

So, how do you fix this issue?

Tools to Check Mobile Optimization

It’s all about the right tools.

Here’s a list of available tools you can use to help figure out if your site is mobile optimized.

• Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test
• Google’s Page Speed Insights
• Keynote MITE
• Browser Stack
• W3C’s MobileOK Checker

 
By experimenting with these awesome tools, you’ll be able to a smooth and effective process to check for vital mobile-first indexing optimization.

Your Survival Guide to Mobile-First Approach

Now that you have a grasp of mobile-first indexing and why it’s important, it’s time to look at some tips to keep you ahead of the game.

While the tools listed above will definitely help with checking for optimization, there are many other things you can do to ensure your strategy is tight and your mobile-first indexing ranking remains high.

Equip Your Mobile Site with Primary Content

In the mobile-first index, Google views your mobile site as the primary source of content.

So, in the case of a responsive site, you won’t see any fluctuations in rankings once the switch happens. In this ideal scenario, the user will adapt to any device they’re on since you’ll be using only one URL.

If you don’t have a responsive site, however, then you’ll at least need to make sure that your primary content exists on your mobile site to avoid any negative repercussions.

Google releases guidelines and routinely makes about 500-600 tweaks every year. All of which you should adhere to.

Don’t Miss Updates From Google’s Blog Post

It’s impossible to have too much information on a subject.

Knowledge is power, which means it’s always a wise idea to read through Google’s posts to gain some information straight from the source.

Google remains to be transparent about changes, so a quick overview of updates and blogs is a great way to determine what you need to do — if anything at all.

What If Your Site Isn’t Mobile-Friendly?

Imagine the increase in traffic you’ll receive by making your site mobile-friendly.

Choosing not to make your site mobile-friendly will seriously create a negative impact once the switch occurs since you’ll be actively ignoring 55% of web users.

No more delaying — just get to it!

As a website owner or paid advertiser, you constantly wonder what sort of traffic your website is experiencing.

Which sources are referring the most traffic to your site? What landing pages are the most popular referral destinations?

The Web Traffic Report by PPCexpo provides the full web traffic breakdown for you, giving you a headstart with your mobile-optimization game.

Final Thoughts: Preparing for Mobile-First Optimization

If you haven’t done anything about the mobile-first indexing update yet, don’t worry.

You still have time to prep.

However, waiting too long can be more problematic in the long-run since competitors may already be driving a significant amount of traffic to their sites through mobile site optimization.

Start by figuring out if your site is mobile-optimized and not just mobile-friendly.

If your site configuration shows different primary content and markup across mobile and desktop, you should consider making changes to your site today.

In 2019, the only way to get ahead with Google’s new mobile-indexing algorithm is to prioritize mobile.