Back in December, we posted about some online marketing trends to keep an eye on in 2017. Today we’re going to focus on one of the most important parts of web optimization in the new year: mobile-first indexing.
If Google’s official blog post is a bit too wordy for you, the takeaway point is that mobile optimization is more important than ever, and, since the beginning of the new year: Google has begun indexing sites using mobile versions first.
What is mobile-first?
Google announced in 2015 that mobile search is now a larger market than desktop, and as the new year rolls in, mobile search is more popular than ever! Mobile-first indexing means that Google will now crawl websites on the web from a mobile browser perspective.
This could have a serious impact on your business’ website if you haven’t been making efforts to keep things optimized up until this point. If your website’s mobile and desktop versions vary greatly, you may want to consider an overhaul to avoid being penalized in your search engine results page (SERP) ranking.
What do I need to do?
As with most web optimizmation, there are a few no-nonsense heuristics that will get you into a good place to optimize your website for mobile-first search crawls in 2017:
- The customer is always first. As usual, make sure that the user experience (or UX) on your website is streamlined. Google will actually give your site a bit of extra weight if you go out of your way to improve user experience. This can include making your website load faster, reducing clutter or repetitive content, and using a directory structure that makes it easy to navigate.
- Make your mobile and desktop experiences the same. If you’ve put most of your design efforts into your desktop site and neglected mobile, now is the time to change your tune. Try to keep both up to date, optimized, and identical in content.
- Don’t expect to see a change right away. Google’s new mobile-first algorithms take a while to crawl your site, so don’t expect a change in your SERP ranking overnight. That said, always keep in mind that optimizing your website is always a good thing.
With these tips, you’ll be well-prepared to optimize your business’ website in the new year and be ready for all of that mobile web traffic!