Why Google needs separate index for mobile search and how sites can prepare for this new index.
This is mobile-first world as everything is shrunk into mobiles. From voice communication to messaging and from web search to ecommerce shopping, mobile devices are used for every purpose. And when everything is becoming mobile friendly, how could websites remain unaffected from the change. Google has also announced that its search results will prioritize mobile friendly sites.
What is mobile first-indexing?
It is called Mobilegeddon. Google is developing a mobile-index of mobile-friendly sites but the concept is still in the developing stage and still there is long way to go before anything could be said about Mobilegeddon. In the coming days, Google can introduce more changes to value mobile-friendly sites. Meanwhile websites can prepare for the mobile-first index.
How you can prepare for the mobile-first world?
1) Ensure your site is mobile friendly
Google appreciates responsive design. If your site sets decently on every screen size from desktop to tabs, your site will figure in mobile-first search result. But it is better to have a website dedicated to mobile platforms.
2) You can adjust the content for mobiles
Content created for mobiles is relatively shorter than the desktop content. But you shouldn’t compromise on content quality while reducing the length to suit to mobile platforms. Your mobile-page should be an authority on the content offered.
You can experiment with different content types including video and audio content. The visual content can easily be integrated in mobile-content marketing strategy and also the SEO performance of the content can be increased with the help of a transcript. Audio and video content provides better use experience than text content.
The best thing you can do to make your website mobile friendly is to remove all the web pages that are incompatible with mobile platforms. For instance take Flash videos that could make difficult for viewing on mobile devices. You can also test mobile compatibility of your website on Google tools.
3) Prioritize the features that are crucial in the Mobilegeddon
There are many factors that you need keeping in mind while optimizing your site for mobile-first index. But you should focus on the most important factors that are:
Website speed: It is the most important factor in SEO and search ranking but in mobile-indexing, it plays a deciding role. The page speed has a direct impact on user-experience of the viewer. You need to keep the web page content light so that it doesn’t reduce the downloading speed of the page.
User experience and engagement: Search engines that these two features seriously while determining user value of web pages. If visitors click back from your website within seconds of visiting the site then it is an indication that they don’t find the site user friendly. A site that is able to retain visitors for long time is considered user friendly.
In mobile-friendly world, you should be aware of user-experience and engagement of each page of your website. Search engines note how visitors switch between pages and how much time they spend on each web page. Chances are that you put more focus on Home Page and leave others while improving user-experience of your website.
Conclusion
The digital world is fast becoming the mobile world as people are using mobiles for everything they do. Mobiles are used for communication and also for web search. Search engines want to provide good results on mobile devices but only mobile-friendly sites can be viewed on mobile phones and tabs. Google has decided to develop a separate mobile-first index to rank sites for mobile search. It’s time you determine mobile- compatibility of your site and make it mobile friendly.
