Mobile-First Indexing : 6 Essential Things that SEO Experts Need to Know

Mobile–first indexing is a new buzz in the tech market. After Google announced that all the websites will be preferred for the mobile–first index in September 2020, everyone is talking about this inevitable change. In today’s smart world, around 45% of the world population owns a smartphone. Such a decision by Google is not a matter of surprise. It’s pretty logical. Simultaneously, several questions also tickle everyone’s mind. Is this new approach of mobile–first indexing helpful in website ranking? What should I do? And, no end to the questions. Although Google has already spoken about mobile–first indexing, we want to share a few more things about this newly introduced term.

Know What Mobile–First Indexing Is

With the word “mobile–first indexing,” one can conclude its meaning. Mobile–first indexing means that the Google algorithm will prefer searching the mobile version of websites to index first. In short, Google will prioritize the mobile version of websites rather than the desktop. With the rise in the percentage of smartphone users around the world, one can imagine what an excellent move is taken by Google. It is noteworthy that after the implementation of such changes, the mobile–friendly website version will enjoy several benefits that it strives for.

Google Decides to Kick–Off Mobile–First Indexing. But Why?

Being an audience, an urge may develop in your mind to know why Google has come up with this decision of indexing the website’s mobile version first. Nowadays, the majority of searches come from mobile devices, which straightly points toward its high use. Google has recognized this fact & decided to prioritize mobile results. Google will kick off this mobile–first indexing concept in September 2020. It’s a great move by this big IT giant, Google.

To know more about this newly–introduced term “Mobile–First Indexing,” continue reading–

There is a lot more to discuss mobile–first indexing, and therefore, we have come up with this blog that covers everything that you must know. Before Google rolls out this new way of indexing out, go through the below–listed points, and learn more about it.

• Stay Calm!

Undoubtedly, from September on, Google will prefer the indexing of the mobile version of websites. It’s not a matter to panic as it’ll not decline the website performance in terms of ranking. The lone change you will observe with its introduction is that Google will first prefer indexing the mobile–friendly websites. Hence, they will highlight your website in your Google Search Console. Sounds good? But, the upshot of this matter is quite different in the case of WordPress websites, especially the responsive one. Websites made on such platforms further allows it to function both on mobile & desktop properly. So, mobile–first indexing doesn’t affect their working at all, including ranking too.

But if you have a separate website for both devices, then there is a probable chance that your mobile site has less content in comparison to the desktop one. It affects the UX a lot. Displaying the same desktop content on the mobile is called mobile parity that drives better results and makes the user experience more convenient. Now they can access the website even on their handset.

• Check for Mobile–Friendliness– It’s important!

Desktop sites are preferred for indexing. But after Google’s mobile–first indexing announcement, it has become necessary to index a mobile site as well. It is not only because of this major step to be taken by the IT giant but also for the impressive ranking results. So, if you have a website, then you should buckle yourself up for Google’s mobile–friendliness test. It will help you to know whether the site is mobile–friendly or not. If it doesn’t pass the test on Google Mobile–Friendly Testing Tool, then take a step forward to the improvement of your software platform for better ranking. Go through several blogs discussing how to make your site mobile–friendly. When you follow step–by–step methods or guides published on several websites, you can make your site mobile–friendly.

• Indexing Changes

After considering whether your website is mobile–friendly or not, the next step is to optimize it for mobile. Yes, we are pointing to the indexing changes. After all, reaching on top of the results is every user’s goal. Make your website fully responsive to work on both desktop & mobile. It will not only enhance the user experience but also add points to its easy indexing. A fully responsive website will serve properly on distinct devices & display the content & its other aspects in the best possible manner. So, it is important to make some indexing changes so that your site can carry forward other new indexing procedures easily.

Below, we have mentioned a few points that you must consider while making changes in indexing–

1. Structure the Data: A properly structured website data will be easy to handle & make the crawling easy as well. Such well–organized websites not just look good, but also boost the ranking.
2. Search Console Verification: The verification in Google Search Console of the website’s mobile version is as important as its desktop version. So, you should prioritize it also.
3. Sitemaps Should Be Accessible: No matter how many links are made to sitemaps & robot directives, they all should be accessible from your mobile devices. Make XML accessible too.
4. App indexation: Another indexing change, prefer app indexation. By doing this, you can easily verify the mobile version of your website with several app associations, files, etc.
5. Server Capacity: Another point you should keep in mind while making indexing changes is to determine the server capacity. A server should have the ability to handle the increased crawl rate.
6. Switchboard tags: If your system already has the mobile switchboard tags, you should not make any changes. Keep it the same as it is.
7. Meta Data: The meta title & meta description should be the same on both the version of the site, mobile, and desktop too.

• Say Yes to Mobile–Friendly Content

Yes. Mobile–friendly content makes the user experience a great one. Because the screen size of the mobile is small, so it is difficult to read. Therefore, you should prefer the content that could be easily readable. If we go in–depth, then we are pointing towards the point that the content must be short & well–written & organized in compact paragraphs to look clear, and perfect. Mobile–friendly content will not only reverse the user experience but also drive you better ranking results.

• Snippet Optimization

As we all know that a high percentage of the population around the world is using smartphones, hence they prefer carrying out online activities like shopping, etc. on their mobile devices. So, one can easily conclude the point that a large part of the audience is on mobile. Use Google Analytics to get the answers to questions like, “what is the source of organic traffic of your website?” After acquiring the search data from the analytics, consider a few changes. Prefer optimization of your mobile snippet, if in case, the source of traffic is from a mobile search. It will assist you in bringing maximum traffic to your website.

• Prioritize User Experience (UX)

Mobile–first indexing serves the purpose of excellent user experience. The point to highlight here is that the mobile version of your site should be appealing enough to grab the customer’s attention. It should add more points to the UX. Prioritizing the UX is the best idea to generate positive outcomes in terms of customer engagement & ranking. Because the mobile version of the site has limited space, so most of the people thought to remove the content. But this is not a great idea. So, what would you do in such a case? How would you improve the user experience? If you ask us, then there are several ways to do that. For instance, with the menu bar, you can enhance the look of your website as now the whole content is hidden behind the tab. It gives the website a fine look on your mobile device.

Final Words

Now you have the complete list of essential things that one should know about the concept of mobile–first indexing. Google has made its decision to put the mobile–first indexing concept into action in September 2020. So, why not welcome this new approach, coming up with a mobile–friendly website? It will help you to make a big difference in terms of ranking.