Google continuously makes improvements in its search and algorithm with the objective of facilitating an effective and efficient search for people. Over the past few years, there has been a boom in the smartphone market and most people around the world use the internet on their mobile phones. Keeping this in mind, Google has been greatly emphasizing the mobile-friendliness of a website. The introduction of mobile-first indexing is another step in that direction.
What is Mobile-first Indexing?
As the term Mobile-first’ denotes, Google will be using the mobile version of a website for indexing and ranking. This is in the reflection that most people around the world use their mobile phones to access Google. However, this does not mean that a website without a mobile version will escape indexing. A website without a mobile version or an unresponsive website will still be indexed, but the ranking will be negatively impacted. It works similarly as not having an SSL certificate. Your website will still rank as it did before, but gradually over time the ranking with subside.
People monitoring the crawl bot traffic will witness an increase in traffic coming from Smartphone Googlebot. The cached version of a website will also be the pages of the mobile version. Assuming that two websites with similar domain authority and other indexes are present but only one has a mobile-friendly website. Google will rank higher the website with a mobile-friendly version.
For a website based on a CMS platform such as WordPress or a responsive website, this change is almost of no significance. WordPress and Responsive websites suit any device including tablets, mobile devices, desktops, etc.
However, if your website is not mobile-ready, it will require several SEO tweaks to ensure that all things are in order. For this, you can rely on a professional SEO company India because they will be able to make the transformation more effective.
How to ensure your Website is Mobile-first Ready?
After reading this far, you may feel a sense of urgency. However, there is no need to panic as mobile-first is only in the testing phase and this transformation will take some time before the effects can be seen on the ground. You will have plenty of time to make the necessary changes and make your website mobile-friendly.
Google provided guidance saying that if your website is responsive, you do not need to make any changes to the website.
Having said that, you would not want to take chance and ensure that several other SEO parameters such as the loading speed of your mobile website, optimizing the image, etc. are in order.
Below are some of the steps to ensure your website is mobile-first ready:
1. Are you using responsive design?
A website has a responsive design when the website appropriately fits the screen of any device. The first thing to ensure is that your website has a responsive design. The content, graphics, and all the other elements of the website must adapt seamlessly on any device. Responsive design is also highly beneficial for SEO. If you want to rank on the top page of the Google search, SEO is of great significance. It is the cheapest form of attracting organic traffic to your website.
2. Have a Mobile-first Strategy in Place
If you are in the process of developing your website, this is the right time to form a mobile-first strategy. All elements of a website from designing, development to UX, mobile-first should be the objective. Everything should be primarily developed for the mobile and the desktop later. Having a responsive design is not enough; the website must also be optimized for mobile devices. Companies providing SEO services in India can accomplish this task for you at a reasonable price. These companies are experts as they do this on regular basis and obtaining their service will not only guarantee a fully-optimized website but will also take the hassle off your hands.
3. Fast Loading Speed
Google ranks a website higher or lower based on several parameters, loading speed is one of the factors. Fast loading speed is not just important for Google. Users often abandon a website if the loading speed is more than a few seconds. A website that is slow to load also receives a lowers rank in the Search Engine Ranking Page. Website owners who think mobile-first has nothing to do with the speed page loads have to rethink their strategy. Google is working on a new program that will assess the speed of a website very differently than it is done today. Moreover, the speed obtained will be used as a major parameter for indexing a website.
4. Use Search Console to Verify Mobile Site
When you have switched your website from desktop to mobile-first, the Google Search Console will send a notification to your account. Site owners would like to know how the crawling is taking place. To know this, the log files will have to be checked on how the search engine bots are accessing the website and where are they coming from. If the activities by Smartphone devices have increased, Google will notify the site owner. This can be taken as an indication that your website is mobile-first compliant.
5. Server Capacity
If you are on a shared hosting plan, ensure that the server can handle the increase in traffic and crawl rate.
Some Common Mobile-first Questions Answered
1. How Can I Make My Website Mobile-first Compatible
Anyone with the technical expertise of developing a website can make a website mobile-first compatible; however, it is highly recommended to hire an SEO company in India that can effectively render your website Mobile-first ready at the same time provide the necessary SEO recommendations to increase your chances of appearing in Google Search first page.
2. Are Other Factors that Determine the Raking Irrelevant after Mobile-first?
Mobile-first does not mean that other factors are irrelevant. SEO will still play a major role in the ranking of a website. Mobile-first means that the mobile version will be considered before the desktop version when it comes to ranking.
Conclusion
If a website is compliant with all the above factors then the website will rank higher in mobile-first. This will propel the website to a higher ranking and help the SEO efforts to meet its objective. This new development is going to change the way a website is indexed and a website owner must be ready to adapt to it.
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